All-time Snow Records Tumbling Again for the Second Straight Year

Map of US weather records for week ending 4/6/09 click image to enlarge or here for source. Map created by HAMWeather,

UPDATE: NOAA predicts the Red River Will Crest Again in Fargo-Moorhead in Late April here possibly again at records levels.

Just a week after the last major northern plains blizzard another significant snowfall occurred this weekend. Models did poorly with the location of the heaviest snow bands and generally overdid the magnitude. These models sometimes have difficult with the first 48 hours, but Susan Solomon and friends tell us you can depend on cruder models to predict the climate 100 years or even a thousand years in advance.

Several inches of snow fell in parts of Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa, southern Minnesota into southern Wisconsin. This will include parts of the Red River Basin already in flood and with deep snowcover (click here to enlarge).

The northern plains has been hit hard this year. Fargo set a record for snowfall and precipitation for March, Bismarck also in North Dakota had record snowfall in December and the second snowiest March, the first year with with two monthly totals in the top ten enlarged here.

Bismarck is on the northern edge of this storm. If they get more than 1.4 inches of snow from this (or some later) storm, they will set an all-time snow record. See the enlarged listing shown below here as of April 1 after the big blizzard. See all the watches and warnings here.

The National Weather Service said International Falls, with the reputation as the nation’s icebox, recorded 124.2 inches of snow this winter. That tops the old record of 116 inches set in 1995-1996. The nearly 9-inch dump from this week’s snowstorm pushed International Falls over the edge. The Minnesota-Ontario border area has been pummeled with snowstorms this winter.

And from KOMO News Weary Spokane residents who are sick of snow can at least now be consoled by the fact that they were a part of history.

A snow storm on Sunday has made this the snowiest winter on record in Spokane. The National Weather Service said 93.6 inches of snow has been recorded at Spokane International Airport this winter, breaking the record set in 1949-50 by a tenth of an inch. It took snowfall of 3.9 inches of Sunday, a record for the date, to break the all-time record. This is the second-consecutive heavy winter in Spokane. Last year, more than 92 inches of snow fell on the Lilac City, third most since records started in 1893.

Spokane’s Top 5 Snow Years:

RANK WINTER SNOW TOTAL

1 2008-2009 93.6

2 1949-1950 93.5

3 2007-2008 92.6

4 1974-1975 89.0

5 1992-1993 87.3

Spokane is also mired in unseasonable cold. Normal high temperatures at the of March are in the low 50s, but this month has seen highs in the 30s and 40s.

See here how an amazing 358 lowest temperature records and 409 snowfall records were broken for the week ending Apr 2, 2009.

231 thoughts on “All-time Snow Records Tumbling Again for the Second Straight Year”

Anthony,
Remember that global warming means more snow, and less snow, and warming, and cooling, and more earthquakes.
Global warming means whatever the current weather is – because the current weather is (of course) due to global warming. Scientists who believe in catastrophic global warming agree that there is a consensus amongst like-minded individuals.

I am sure Obama, Gore and Brown will claim that it would be colder if it wasn’t for global warming of the AGW kind.
However, the “new world order” took another step forward recently at the G20 talks. This whole AGW politically motivated hysteria reminds me of the film “Soylent Green”.
This is a great site, keep it up Anthony, Steven et al.

See, this is why the watchword is ‘climate change’ not ‘global warming’. Climate change is apparently the only kind of change Obama doesn’t have hope for. Any sort of change is the fault of CO2 pollution and must be fixed with lots of taxes and regulations, while the politically correct climate is one that doesn’t change, like that which exists inside the reality distortion field of Washington DC.

Flanagan (22:54:14) :
Steven: Global warming means more snow at northern latitudes and less snow/more rain around the tropics. Please stop bringing forward half-truths like these ones.
Flanagan – Which part of the following (generally published AGW Proponent) ideas are consistent with more Northern Latitude Snow.
[1] CO2 is a Greenhouse Gas and contributes to warming the Earth.
[2] Increasing Man Made CO2 Emissions will warm the Earth.
[3] The Warming of the Earth will be most pronounced at the Poles.
I don’t see how you can consistently claim that there will be both “More Northern Latitude Snow” and that the above listed ideas make sense.
I’m just going for “consistency” – I’m not saying that you personally have claimed any of the above list of ideas – but would you agree that the 3 ideas listed above are general tenents of the AGW Case and are difficult to reconcile with the idea of more Northern Latitude Snow.
I.e. How can the North Pole be warming – and yet produce increased snow nearby – shouldn’t the snow be retreating to the north?

Flanagan (22:54:14) writes in part: “Steven: Global warming means more snow at northern…”
Then it is not global warming, is it. Try climate change, and then perhaps: “Weather’s been a bit capricious this past century or so, huh?” as you ease out the door…

Flanagan (22:54:14) :
“Steven: Global warming means more snow at northern latitudes and less snow/more rain around the tropics. Please stop bringing forward half-truths like these ones.””
!!!!
Talk about spin. If there is more snow in the northern latitudes and more clouds in the tropics, that is the recipe for the onset of ice ages, in some models. Certainly more rain means more clouds higher albedo cooler earth.

Timing is everything…Spokane was 4 degrees above normal today and forecast to be warmer tomorrow and Tuesday. But April did start out averaging 15 degrees below normal and March clocked in at 7 degrees below normal, so definitely a cool start to spring.
Seattle was also chilly in March, with temps running 5 degrees below normal.
Is anyone else a fan of the new charts the NWS is using that graphically show daily high/low temperatures as well as records? Here’s the Spokane chart for March:http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/images/otx/cliplot/KGEG200903plot-2.png

Didnt I read somewhere that maximum snowfall seems to occur at 0 to -2 deg C, so it follows that max snowfalls will fall in areas that fall in these temperature ranges, when moisture is present to be converted to snow. If its a lot colder you get desert like conditions ie antartica, if its a lot warmer rain falls.

Anthony: I apologize for the tone of my previous post; it is just that I get tired of the predictable response certain posters always pop out with every time evidence is shown which threatens their worldview. So I will respond to the point.
Flanagan, the post was about record snow and many record cold temperatures (as well as a few record warm temperatures). How could that be a half-truth when it actually happened? Note that no mention was made of global warming. So, you accused someone of lying with half-truths about something he didn’t mention.

Graeme Rodaughan
Hotter polar regions means more melting AND more evaporation from the seas (even in the winter). So northern regions below the cloud level should undergo more precipitations (as opposed to very high mountains).
The situation is supposed to be different at the tropics and, for what I remember, some intertropical regions are supposed to become drier. Because of the wind patterns. This is all detailled in the IPCC assesment reports – which you should really read one day.
About the clouds: they play a double role. They can reflect part of the sun and altogether absorb IR coming from the surface. It all depends on their composition and/or color.

Flanagan
You mention that global warming means more snow at northern latitudes. What is expected in the south? I found the following study mentioned on Dr. Pielke’s site re: snow cover trends in South America. The paper claims to have developed the first regional snowpack series (1951–2005) from Chilean and Argentinean snow course records.http://climatesci.org/2007/06/14/snow-cover-trends-in-south-america/
In part it states:
‘Annual and warm-season river discharges on both sides of the cordillera are significantly correlated with the regional snowpack record and show positive linear trends over the 1951–2004 common period, probably related to a greater frequency of above-average snowpacks during recent decades.’
Dr Pielke comments on the whole study:
‘The climate metric of snowfall in South America is clearly not directly related to the global average surface temperature trends. Climate Science has repeatedly shown that the global average temperature trend is an inadequate climate metric with respect to how the climate system actually impacts society and the environment.’
Cheers, ian

Whilst downunder: “Almost all of TAS(mania) had its coldest day since November or December of last year, with Mount Hartz chilling so much that it had its coldest April day in 13 years of records. It only warmed to one degree today, allowing up to 10cm of snow to fall.
“Victoria too felt the bitter chill, with overnight temperatures dipping to the single digits, with areas of frost about the Wimmera. Snow has also been falling over the alpine peaks, including Mt Baw Baw and Mt Buller.”Weatherzone
And last week I was cursing the heat here in Victoria.
p.s. When they write “alpine” I think they must mean “New Alpine” … as in New York. Used to be just “the high country” or “the mountains” but someone seems to have cringed…

The alarmists could look at those records and insist that the warming is causing more precipitation – just like the models predicted.
The trouble is the models also predict that the great plains is going to be an a perpetual drought!

Hi,
about dr Pielke’s study. As has been reported in replys to this paper, this part of south america is outside the tropical region and therefore should have increased snowfalls. For example, more snow is observed there when en El nino event is taking place although an el nino is “globally warm”.
For people with a problem in geography: the intertropical region is defined as the region between approx 23.4 degrees S and N. Tropical climates include not-so-“tropical” temperatures: alpine tundra and snow-capped peaks (Mauna Kea, Mt. Kilimanjaro) and the Andes as far south as the northernmost parts of Chile and Argentina.

I believe what they are saying is that when it becomes very very cold, then the air will not contain enough moisture to get a good snow storm going. Once it begins to “warm” up towards the freezing mark, then you have idea conditions for heavy snow.

Flanagan: “Global warming means more snow at northern latitudes”
Now you’ve got me puzzled. I live in the normally mild S-W of England. We’ve just suffered the coldest, snowiest winter for a long time. I thought it was due to cold air coming over from Siberia, but it seems the cold and snow are due to global warming. Our government is closing down coal-fired power stations to stop this global warming which seems to be bringing us cold and snow. It is building wind turbines which don’t work in cold weather when invariably the wind doesn’t blow over here. I burnt about twice as much wood as normal this winter to keep warm because of all this global warming. Does this global warming mean we are about to enter another Little Ice Age when the rivers over here froze and crops failed? Please tell us what we are to do about it.

Of course, down here in OZ it’s not politically correct to mention any anti-AGW weather events, but we did get news of the Wilkins Ice shelf break-up.http://www.theage.com.au/environment/antarctic-ice-shelf-near-final-collapse-20090406-9tvx.html
Many local radio media outlets are reporting that the sea level will rise as a result of the already floating ice breaking away. Fortunately the attached article is more accurate on this point. And of course this is directly linked to global warming.
Of course no mention of the overall increased sea ice extent in Antarctica over the past decades, currently well above the 20 year average.

Flanagan,
Need to double check your data about increased snowfall in S America during an El Nino. Don’t think it has actually happened.
The more general theme of this web page is that the evidence for warming is weak. It hasn’t warmed recently, satelite data indicate it has cooled over the last 10 years, the temperature “proxies” showing warming are problematic (I’m being generous with this comment) and, as Anthony has documented, the ground based data is highly unreliabel. Finally, even this very questionable ground data appears to have been subjected to manipulation to get the desired results.

Flanagan (00:20:39) : “About the clouds: they play a double role. They can reflect part of the sun and altogether absorb IR coming from the surface. It all depends on their composition and/or color.”
Studies indicate that most clouds are very dark at night but also very effective at reflecting sunlight. This leads to generally cooler temperatures than those recorded under cloudy but brighter daylight conditions.
/sarc

Flanagan (22:54:14) :
Steven: Global warming means more snow at northern latitudes and less snow/more rain around the tropics. Please stop bringing forward half-truths like these ones.
————-
Yep, that might be true. Which might mean that, in northern latitudes, albedo effects start occurring, glaciers start advancing and that may have a knock-on effect on climate there and, ergo, at lower latitudes.
I think we’re talking about evolutions. Glaciers advancing and retreating before starting to advance again. Temperatures going up and down around a mean, and occasionally having a step-change shift of the mean.
What I never see being discussed is whether we understand how to recognise the signals which precipitate a step-shift in mean vs the signals consistent with a stable state oscillation around a mean.
Is that because we don’t know them or because it doesn’t suit scientists to tell the truth to anyone else?

I just looked at that like to ‘The Age’
“Scientists have been warning of danger to the peninsula ice shelves since March 2002 when the collapse of Larsen B took away 3250 square kilometres of 220-metre thick ice in just 35 days.”
Is that true? 220-meters thick? In 35 days? I guess I’ll have to google that one but The Age did the due diligence already right?

Flanagan,
which IPCC assessment reports do you read?
In the 4th IPCC assessment report, Section 14 (North America) the word snow is mentioned 38 times. I did not find any comments about increase in snow in North America. However, I found a couple of other comments:
“In Canada, warming from 1900 to 2003 led to a decrease in total precipitation as snowfall in the west and Prairies”
“Rising temperatures will diminish snowpack and increase evaporation, affecting seasonal availability of water.”
“The North American snowmobiling industry (valued at US$27 billion) (ISMA, 2006) is more vulnerable to climate change because it relies on natural snowfall. By the 2050s, a reliable snowmobile season disappears from most regions of eastern North America that currently have developed trail networks…”
“Warmer or less snowy winters will likely reduce delays, improve ground and air transportation reliability, and decrease the need for winter road maintenance (Pisano et al., 2002).”
“Warming, and changes in the form, timing and amount of precipitation, will very likely lead to earlier melting and significant reductions in snowpack in the western mountains by the middle of the 21st century (high confidence.”
So which way it is (by IPCC assessment reports), more snow in North America or less snow.

From the article referred to by DJ at 01:27:11:
“Scientists have been warning of danger to the peninsula ice shelves since March 2002 when the collapse of Larsen B took away 3250 square kilometres of 220-metre thick ice in just 35 days.”
So, the ice we are talking about is 220 meters thick and we are supposed to think that the break-up is due to global warming induced melting?! Some other forces have to be involved…

Ok so The Age ommitted the hedge. Very interesting langauge here too though ‘global warming had a major part… but is only one in a number of contributoryy factors…’ Reminds me of financial analysts who are so determined to make a call they’ll ignore anything that undermines them, however ‘major’.
“Professor Glasser acknowledges that global warming had a major part to play in the collapse, but emphasises that it is only one in a number of contributory factors, and despite the dramatic nature of the break-up in 2002, both observations by glaciologists and numerical modeling by other scientists at NASA and CPOM (Centre of Polar Observation and Modeling) had pointed to an ice shelf in distress for decades previously. “It’s likely that melting from higher ocean temperatures, or even a gradual decline in the ice mass of the Peninsula over the centuries, was pushing the Larsen to the brink”, said co-author Ted Scambos of University of Colorado’s National Snow and Ice Data Centre.”

Shoveled out about 7 inches so far this morning here in Michigan, and its still coming down. On the bright side, I promised my son that when I get home from work today, we get to make another Snow Bunny like we did last year on the Saturday before Easter.
Anthony, perhaps there would be some way for all of us to email our April Snow photos to and create a webpage about that?
P.S. Go Michigan State Spartans!

I did not miss your point, Steven Goddard.
The AGW High Command has decreed exactly as you stated it.
Add droughts, floods, hurricanes, etc.
Never mind that the Sun is comatose, well beyond anything seen in at least 200 years. The Globe is doing anything but warming, and the Sun is doing anything but being normal.
And oh, by the way, were it not for ice breaking off and sailing into the briny, the Titanic would have been just another ocean liner.
If it were 1912 again (aah… that cooling period) we could rename the ship the AGW HanGore, courtesty of IPCC lines.
Both the former and the latter take thier passengers to their doom.

“Hotter polar regions means more melting AND more evaporation from the seas (even in the winter)”.
Yes Flanagan … lots of evapouration from the poles in winter … the polar areas are covered with ice in winter!!!

Or as a result of more snow at some time in the past, increasing the flow of glaciers that feed the icesheets, thus pushing more ice out further onto the sea.
Just because we’re witnessing such event currently, doesn’t mean that they’re extraordinary on a geological timescale.

Flanagan
Ta’ for your reply. So to extrapolate, global warming (as per the IPCC I’m assuming) is forecast to result in more snow for both the northern and southern latitudes?
Perusing a map it appears that, as an earlier poster expressed, apart from the northern/central Andes (equador, peru, bolivia), the general topography of the tropics does not seem conducive to snowfall so I am not sure how applicable such a forecast is.

Hasn’t there been a long term trend in global warming? Aren’t the real questions why and are there really any runaway tipping points? Also, just wondering, if slightly warmer temps allow for more snowfall due to the slightly warmer air being able to hold more moisture, but it still being cold enough for snow, how is that a catastrophe? ( aside from those who have to shovel it 🙂 )

Re: Ice Sheets Falling
Ice sheets doing anything (cracking, expanding, dancing, reciting poetry, even just being there or not being there) at any particular time or place is the proverbial case of Anectdotal Evidence. Who cares?
Andrew

Off topic but just saw where Obama wants to put restrictions on Antarctic tourism .He says its to minimize oil spills and and to be for peaceful and guarantee freedom for scientific investigations.In other words they don’t want anyone to see how large the ice is or how far it has advanced.That would ruin global warming .

just a bit of advice, I live in England and it only really snows when it is cold (different type of latitude?) it certainly doesn’t snow when it s warmer i imagine parts of america experience similar conditions.
furthermore to you original point this year simply wasn’t warmer than many preceding ones and neither was last year the result has been heavy snowfalls- as far as i can tell the same in europe,
so as far as i can tell colder=snowier in many parts of the world……
(the desert of the antarctic is so cold that only the warmest air makes it there before precipitation ocurrs or there is a certain minimum moisture in the air that reaches those areas

DJ – “… a direct result of warming.”
And if you link actual data (instead of hype) here: http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/S_daily_extent_hires.png
… you’ll see that this is in fact the only place on the entire continent that the ice sheet is inside the recent trend line. In fact, approximately 10% of the ice edge is inside the trend line but 90% of the ice edge well exceeds the ice line. And if you go here: http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/S_timeseries.png
… you’ll see that current sea ice in Antarctica currently exceeds the average for this date by about a million square kilometers of ice.
So, please, tell us, is the article you referenced (presumably previously unbeknownst to you) a cherry-picked, alarmist piece of propagandist rhetoric about warming in Antarctica that focuses on 10% of the data and ignores the 90% that would tend to undermine its agenda or am I somehow mistaken?

Raven (01:03:29) :
The alarmists could look at those records and insist that the warming is causing more precipitation – just like the models predicted.
The trouble is the models also predict that the great plains is going to be an a perpetual drought!

Except that they are seeing ABOVE average precipitation! So once again, models seem to have it wrong, and/or, there is no AGW (I believe its the and..)

The prince of darkness, the most obnoxious of the “other gods”, he who was born out from the depths of the seas, after being woken up by a most rare explosion of a black star at the limits of the known universe, he who hibernated for eons and now comes again to raze humanity, has proclaimed in his profound and guttural voice that you non believers must turn into poverty, that you should suffer in order to return to the old way of living he has decided for you and that by accepting his will you will be indeed happy for ever.Do not believe when you see what some call “snow”, it is not!, it is scorching sun!, it is global warming!

” Flanagan (22:54:14) :
Steven: Global warming means more snow at northern latitudes and less snow/more rain around the tropics. Please stop bringing forward half-truths like these ones.”
Actually there has been an increase in snow at lower levels, even as far south as Kuwait, that is on the border of the tropics, so is that evidence of global cooling then?
And as for all this warming causes more snow in northern latitudes idea, well, then that compresses to ice and yet we are told the ice is melting because of the warmer climate?
SO global warming causes melting of polar ice and less snow and ice leading to rising sea-levels leading to catastrophic levels of risk of entire cities being washed away by the rising sea, yet, at the same time, the polar ice is increasing because of global warming causing more of the ocean to condense into clouds that move north (or south) to the poles where it falls as snow and turns to ice, yet the ice is melting, leading to rising sea-levels leading to catastrophic levels of risk of entire cities being washed away by the rising sea, yet, at the same time, the polar ice is increasing because of global warming causing more of the ocean to……
Is it any wonder that increasing numbers of people (scientist and lay-person alike) are turning away from an unproven, contradictory and self destructive hypothesis that is self evidently the worst idea since Adolph Hitler thought that it might be quite a good idea to have a little dabble in politics.
AGW: the universal unifying theory that explains everything………………
………… except why their models are wrong!

DJ and Flanagan, ever see a ship break in two in rough seas because it was so heavy? There is one off the coast of Oregon, still sitting there. Ice breaks up not just because it gets warmer. It melts when it gets warmer, true, but melting looks different than cracking up into icebergs. History says that when ice bergs are out and about, we are having colder temperatures. Right now we are not under global warming conditions. So I fail to follow your conclusion that global warming caused the break.
Consider this. Floating sheets that are getting a bit too heavy might start to break under their own weight. And since ice sheets are filled with cleave/crack areas it would stand to reason that they would predictably break up at some point. Diamonds have cleave areas that cutters use to cleave them. And they don’t have to warm them up to do that. In fact, there are several substances on Earth that break up better when they are colder, not warmer. Ice has cracks in it. So do ice sheets. If things get too heavy, they will cleave along these cracks. Has the ice sheet grown in thickness? Evenly or unevenly? Why did it break near land? What is the temperature of the sea underneath?
Given the land surface temperature down there and the lack of long term records (they believe but don’t have data) for this particular very tiny ice sheet in comparison to the above normal extent of ice in summer and winter down there, I think the jury is out as to what caused it. It is my understanding that scientists are studying it. We would do well to conjecture, as I have done, until more is known. You are simply reporting what the media is reporting. Not exactly a peer reviewed source is it.

Pete Stroud (05:56:16) :
“Ron de Haan. Thanks for highlighting the Arctic Review paper, it saved me doing so. This work to be propagated as it dispells many false claims by the warmists”.
Pete, you’re welcome.
I am just fed up with the never ending riddle of AGW indoctrination and their victims, who obviously have shut down their brain.
On the other hand that is what happens to people who get involved in a “movement”.
They stop thinking for themselves, blabber BS (Bad Science) party guide lines and say “Wir haben es nicht gewusst” when their world ends up in ruins.
History is repeating it’s self.

We are on track to have a hard freeze in North Texas tonight. All time April low temperature records are sure to be broken in many locations. This morning it was 35 degrees at the ranch with 20 mph winds out of the North. My guess is we will see mid-20s tonight.

“These models sometimes have difficult with the first 48
hours, but Susan Solomon and friends tell us you can depend on cruder models to predict the
climate 100 years or even a thousand years in advance.”
The climate models do not need to predict weather, but they do need to model it accurately. For example, there may be more (or less) tropical convection in a world with more CO2. The convection may be more (or less) concentrated leading to cooling (or warming). The modelers often use parameters instead of modeling in high resolution, but those parameters are highly indeterminate mainly because they cannot be verified in today’s world. So it doesn’t matter if a climate model can predict yesterday’s snowfall or not, but it does matter that it models snowfall events in general. With that snowfall, subsequent weather will be different (not just albedo, but moisture, winds, freezes including vegetation, etc).
A climate model without these details is a circle-jerk, it just makes assumptions of what the weather will be and derives preordained conclusions.

Obvious to many but worthy of mention 29 days without a sunspot. I believe there is a relation to the climate although there are many that would say not so, but looking out the window seems to be getting cooler.

“Scientists have been warning of danger to the peninsula ice shelves since March 2002 when the collapse of Larsen B took away 3250 square kilometres of 220-metre thick ice in just 35 days.”
How much ice was in the Larson B? About 715x 10^9 cubic. meters but the amount of Antarctic sea ice that melts and reforms every year is about 100 x 10^12 cubic meters.
How much of the Larson B is still out there cooling the Antarctic ocean? Regardless of why the ice gets into the oceans it still cools the water, it is why we put ice in drinks.

4th IPCC: “The North American snowmobiling industry (valued at US$27 billion) (ISMA, 2006) is more vulnerable to climate change because it relies on natural snowfall. By the 2050s, a reliable snowmobile season disappears from most regions of eastern North America that currently have developed trail networks…”
In the meanwhile: Canada’s population continues to explode, passing the 100 million mark in 2040 as American’s continue their mass migration North. Winter industries continue to show unprecedented growth as demand builds for recreation in the brief but intense cold season. New snowmobile trails have been developed to provide a network encompassing most the the Canadian Archipelago while further south ATV’s have taken over the abandoned trails that were initially laid out in the previous century. Sales of new recreational vehicles for the first time exceed $3 Trillion in adjusted dollars.

According to Wikipedia, snow has the highest albedo effect. Wouldn’t the amount of reflected sunlight from these record snowfalls influence temperatures? (May already be doing so) Am curious, globally do we have record (or greater than normal) snowfalls, or just in North America?

Flanagan is correct. More snow in the northern latitudes is expected. This will expand the many glaciers and further demonstrate the climate chaos predicted by the IPCC. This may also make it necessary to relocate the polar bear population form the Arctic to the expanding glaciers.
I hope there will be room for the penguins too.
Please contribute to the WWF.

Spokane update – 97.7″. We’re leaving the old record in our dust (or snow powder!) We had the snowiest December (over 60″ if I remember correctly) in history as well.
I’m truly hoping for an early Spring. Last year was so cold I couldn’t grow any pumpkins – the seeds didn’t germinate and just rotted in the ground.

Here in New Hampshire, (as elsewhere) the alarmist mantra has been that the declining snowfall totals since the late 70’s due to (what else) manmade warming, is threatening the ski and snowmobile industries, forcing them to rely more and more on snowmaking, and shortening the season. More mid-season rains and freeze-thaw cycles, it is predicted will deteriorate overall skiing conditions, leading to a decline in a very important industry. Yet, last winter came within a couple of inches to breaking the all-time snowfall record held in Conord of, and this year they had another banner year, with a snowfall total about 42% above average.
So, we “skeptics” are left wondering, so which is it? Is the tremendous uptick in snowfall the past couple of years “proof” of global warming or not? Or, perhaps it’s that catch-all “climate change”, or the latest “climate chaos”? No wonder we call AGW an ideology. In the Gore-Hansian empire, all weather and climatological roads lead to AGW.

So where is the Wilkins Ice Sheet now?
Has it already melted and unleashed a wall of water to flatten coastal cities that is even now bearing down on us?
Is it barrelling off in to the South Pacific, acting as a dreadful navigational hazard and about to melt to (see above)?
Is it just sitting there, where it will eventually reattach itself as the temperatures drop?

Has nobody noticed that 8 out of the top 10 snowfall years for Bismarck have been in the last three “warmer” decades? Maybe storm track comes into play here?
And since we are talking about snowfall records, Washington DC just finished a third consecutive winter season of single digit snowfall totals. That has never happened in the 100+ year climatological record.

Weather Report from Houston
As I tell all my Yankee firends, Houston has the morals of Los Angeles and the Climate of Calcutta. And that’s being unfair to Calcutta. We say that in the Fall the mold changes color.
Well, it used to be like that. The economy has put a slight dampener on the shenanagans, and this Global Warming stuff has been fantastic.
This part weekend was sunny and mild, with highs in the upper 70s and low 80s, bright sunshine and brisk northerly winds. Forecast for tonight is a LOW of 36 degrees (a few degrees off the record), with highs in the 70s the rest of the week.
The air this winter has felt like we suddenly gained about 3000 feet in elevation. Everybody’s been out walking their dogs in windbreakers and sunglasses (the people, not the dogs) with big grins on their faces (both people AND dogs).
I understand that Dallas and points north will be seeing record lows tonight, but by the time that Canadian air gets down here to the Gulf, it’s JUST RIGHT.
I think Al Gore needs to hold revival (tent) meetings back and forth across the midwest this summer. Our weather would be fantastic.

After a record 2007- 2008 for snowfall in a winter, Madison WI, had a record Dec. this season and was on pace for a new seasonal record until Feb. They’re making another assault on it over recent weeks, however.

Flanagan (22:54:14) : Global warming means more snow at northern latitudes and less snow/more rain around the tropics.
Fascinating. Absolutely fascinating. Such evident self delusion is hard to ignore. MORE snow equals warming? And last time I looked there wasn’t a lot of snow in the tropics to begin with… (Though last winter it did snow in southern Brazil in a way characteristic of winters from 30+ years ago…)
BTW, please look up the works of Milankovitch wherein he shows that the precursor event to the onset of an ice age (glacial) is MORE snow and ice at the north pole. Your thesis that more snow up north means warming is exactly and completely 180 degrees wrong.
(It’s like trying not to watch a car wreck… you know you ought to look away but you just can’t … )

Mike Lorrey (23:11:14) :
See, this is why the watchword is ‘climate change’ not ‘global warming’. Climate change is apparently the only kind of change Obama doesn’t have hope for. Any sort of change is the fault of CO2 pollution and must be fixed with lots of taxes and regulations, while the politically correct climate is one that doesn’t change, like that which exists inside the reality distortion field of Washington DC.
and Columbia University, surely!

“”” Flanagan (00:20:39) :
Graeme Rodaughan
Hotter polar regions means more melting AND more evaporation from the seas (even in the winter). So northern regions below the cloud level should undergo more precipitations (as opposed to very high mountains).
About the clouds: they play a double role. They can reflect part of the sun and altogether absorb IR coming from the surface. It all depends on their composition and/or color. “””
We are talking about climate change; not last night’s weather; so when you talk about clouds (more) you have to presume that you are talking about more clouds for some long enough period to be considered climate and not weather.
Yes, more clouds reflect more sunlight, increasing albedo; a cooling effect.
Yes more clouds absorb ground emitted IR; which warms the atmosphere of the clouds causing a convective updraft that carries that cloud material to higher altitudes where the thermal energy an be lost to space; also a cooling effect.
Yes more clouds block additional solar radiation from reaching the ground; which cools the ground; also a cooling effect,a dn one which lowers the temperature of the surface thereby reducing the emittance of IR from the suface (which those clouds may intercept) another cooling effect.
Net result is that nobody ever obseved the surface temperature to rise in the shadow zone, when a cloud passes in front of the sun; it always gets cooler at the surface; which is where ice and snow co-exist with humans and other living things, and where the catastrophically rising oceans are drowning millions of people ; well so they predict.
More clouds however formed leads to surface cooling; even with last night’s weather; if you have clouds in the sky (or not) of any kind, when the sun goes down the surface gets cooler, and the temperature goes down; it never gets warmer after sunset; unless for some weird weather reason (not climate) you get some Santa ana wind come roaring in with already heated air from somewhere else.
Clouds are ALWAYS negative feedback; particularly on climate time scales.
George

Flanagan (00:20:39) : About the clouds: they play a double role. They can reflect part of the sun and altogether absorb IR coming from the surface. It all depends on their composition and/or color.
Ooh boy… Would those be the blue clouds or the green ones? Or maybe the lavender rather than the chartreuse? …
Last time I looked, water vapor and water droplets were pretty much colorless / white … buy maybe you can show me some colored clouds someday… (And no, I don’t mean white clouds reflecting colored light from elsewhere nor do I mean water droplets acting as a prism… show me the clouds who have a different color such that they have differential light absorption – and this is not smog we’re taking about, it’s good old natural in the sky clouds from water; say in the South Pacific).

DJ (01:27:11) : Meanwhile very long lived ice sheets keep falling off the Antarctic
Snow falls in the interior. It can’t melt because it’s too cold. After enough builds up, it pushes out to sea as a floating ice sheet. When this gets big enough (as it must) to become physically unstable, big rafts break off an float away to melt in warmer places. That is the normal cycle of ice in Antarctica.
It happens on geologic time (not your time, thousands of years time) so you can look at it and be wonderfully mystified or come up with lots of pins to stick into computer dolls / models but it will just do what it does.
If the ice did not break off, it would have to keep extending indefinitely. The clearly can not happen.
BTW, there is a 1500 year climate cycle that we have been in. We warmed over the natural course of that cycle, but it is now reaching it’s end. I had hoped that I could avoid living through the next Bond Event (they typically correlate with cold era’s and social unrest – called a Pessimum
GAK! At this point I was going to include a link to the wiki page on the “Migration Period Pessimum” and the “Iron Age Pessimum” but Migration era pessimum page has been deleted (probably as an embarrisment to AGW…) to I’ll just paste the text of it here (thanks to caching and The Wayback Machine you can not erase my history… nor the PDF on my archival disk…)
Begin Quote from old unmolested Wiki:
Migration Period Pessimum
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Temperature record of the last 2000 years
The Migration Period Pessimum (also referred to as Dark Ages Cold Period) was a period of cold climate in the North Atlantic region, lasting from about 450 to about 900 AD.[1] It succeeded the Roman Age Optimum and was followed by the Medieval Warm Period.
This Migration Period Pessimum saw the retreat of agriculture, including pasturing as well as cultivation of crops, leading to reforestation in large areas of central Europe and Scandinavia.[2] This period corresponds to the time following the Decline of the Roman Empire around 480 and the Plague of Justinian (541-542).[3] Climatically this period was one of rapid cooling indicated from tree-ring data[4] as well as sea surface temperatures based on diatom stratigraphy in Norwegian Sea[5], which can be correlated with Bond event 1 in the North Atlantic sediments.[6] It was also a period of rising lake levels, increased bog growth and a peak in lake catchment erosion.
[edit]References
Desprat, Stéphanie; Sánchez Goñia, María Fernanda; Loutre, Marie-France (2003). “Revealing climatic variability of the last three millennia in northwestern Iberia using pollen influx data”. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 213 (1-2): 63-78. doi:10.1016/S0012-821X(03)00292-9.
Andersen, S. T.; Berglund, B. E. (1994). “Maps for terrestrial non-tree pollen (NAP) percentages in north and central Europe 1800 and 1450 yr BP”. Paläoklimaforschung 12: 119–134.
Ambrosiani, B. (1984). “Settlement expansion—settlement contraction: a question of war, plague or climate?” In: Morner, N.-A.; Karlén, W. (Eds.), Climatic Changes on a Yearly to Millennial Basis. Dordrecht:Reidel Publishing Company, pp. 241–247.
Eronen, M.; Hyvärinen, H.; Zetterberg, P. (1999). “Holocene humidity changes in northern Finnish Lapland inferred from lake sediments and submerged Scots pines dated by tree-rings”. The Holocene 9: 569–580.
Jansen, E.; Koc, N. (2000). “Century to decadal scale records of Norwegian sea surface temperature variations of the past 2 millenia”. PAGES Newsletter 8 (1): 13–14.
Bond, G.; et al. (1997). “A Pervasive Millennial-Scale Cycle in North Atlantic Holocene and Glacial Climates”. Science 278 (5341): 1257-1266. doi:10.1126/science.278.5341.1257.

Re: Pamela Gray (05:52:09) :
Your comments directed at DJ and Flanagan are spot on. In addition to other forces operating on Ice sheets, tides rise 50 feet or more at those latitudes. The up and down leverage applied to the bridge linking the sea ice sheets is enormous and a source of cleave/cracks in the ice.
Pamela, on another subject, I am compiling winter precipitation records for mountainous areas of the western US. I suspect you are privy to such information and may have personally compiled data too. If you are willing to share and/or provide sources to specific data sources I will most grateful. you can contact me at; paddy_wagon@comcast.net.

Now, after this detour to preserve history…
As I was saying, I’d hoped to not last through the next Bond Event, however, we have 3 nagging little points:
1) It’s a 1470 year or so cycle and the last one started about 1470 years ago… take a look at what was happening in about 530 to 540 A.D. It was cold, and dark, and the sun wasn’t very bright… In fact, they called it The Dark Ages.
2) The sun has gone very very quiet. Not pleasing in the context of #1.
3) We’ve had a sudden onset of more cold and more snow at the poles with the oceans cooling starting in 2003 (it takes a while to cool a few gigatons of water…)
Now to me it’s pretty clear that we have a very warm ocean (and will for a few more years) especially in the tropics, putting lots of water into the air – being by definition hot and humid, not snowy… That air then hits a very very cold polar region and dumps boat loads of snow. That than accelerates the run to the cold side…
So we will be in this ‘battle ground’ state for a few more years, but only as long as it takes to cool the ocean enough to make us really wish for the good old days of a warm climate with plenty of food to eat.
Please note: Your computer models don’t mean a darned thing if they can not explain Bond Events:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1500-year_climate_cycle
who’s wiki page also seems to still exist… at least for now.
It is my opinion that we are watching the early stages of an entry into a Bond Event (and will be for the next 30 years or so) and I can only hope that we find a way to mitigate the extreme cold that is headed our way with the attendant crop failures at northern latitudes. We ought to know in about 15 years… geological time is slow like that, even the fast whip of a 1500 year cycle takes decades to observer at the inflection points.
So welcome to “Bond Event Zero” (tm and copyright E.M. Smith) hold on to your hats, it’s going to be a bumpy ride…
FWIW, I’ve also put some of this text and the preserved Wiki pages up at:http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/04/06/bond-event-zero/
where I will be expanding on this topic (and saving more history before the AGW Langoliers get to it…)

It would appear that the AGW Langoliers have also deleted the Roman Warm Period:
“Roman Warm Period
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This page has been deleted. The deletion log for the page is provided below for reference.
17:29, 11 December 2008 Andrew c (talk | contribs) deleted “Roman Warm Period” ‎ (G7: One author who has requested deletion or blanked the page)”
Guess it’s time to go fishing in the Way Back Machine again…
Might I suggest that WUWT start a history preservation page to hold onto our climate (and cold period…) history while we can? I’m doing what I can, but it would be nice to have “many hands make light work’…

E.M.Smith (11:19:25) : About deletions in Wikipedia
All fanatic movements embark on “cultural revolutions” which try to rewrite history and previous data according to their so called “revolutionary principles”
I presume Fatty Al et Al. have already prepared an “Index”of books to burn.

Still not spots on the sun today
It’s the same as the spots yesterday
Leif? Where is the ramp up?
It’s funny when man thinks he knows something….which of course is often nothing at all or the opposite
tax, tax and more tax, that’s something that man understands. This and “it’s no my fault” and “did I do that?”

Flanagan (22:54:14) :
Steven: Global warming means more snow at northern latitudes and less snow/more rain around the tropics. Please stop bringing forward half-truths like these ones.
B.S.
Yes and you have also told us it means more deserts and more rainfall and floods. Even you don’t believe anything this silly.
The description you gave here is in fact a standard prescription for the onset of an ice age. I suppose that would be global warming too.

Curious…
Either The Wayback Machine has been tampered with, or they never saved older versions of certain pages from wiki:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Agehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period
Have both been re-written to match the AGW Party Line and the wayback machine can not find older versions…
Also the roman age optimum finds nothing as does a search for the migration era pessimum, yet I found a copy in the Google cache (for the migration era pessimum) and the deletion notice for the Roman Warm Period page…
OK, I’ve pasted what seemed pertinent into comments in:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/index.html?curid=17054538
If anyone has any related historical text per any of the optimums, pessimums, warm periods, or cold periods, feel free to past it into a comment there for preservation…
Still need a Roman Warm Period page ( MWP seems secure, probably due to close attention… but a copy of some MWP text might be nice too…)

E.M.Smith (10:02:43) :
If we’re at the peak of a cycle that is 1000 years long (Dark Ages 500 AD, MWP at 1000 AD, LIA at 1500), then we should be about to see the bottom drop out since we also appear to be at the peak of a 60 year cycle.
BTW loved the term Langoliers for the Wikipedia AGW vigilantes.

The rapid warming of the Antarctic Peninsula is well known to science – e.g., nsidc.org/news/events/IPY_APCV/IPY-APCV_booklet.pdf . This is driven by global warming amplified by changes in the polar westerlies.
The wetting of the high northern latitudes (outside of summer) is a well known consequence of global warming as the jet streams contract northward due to declining baroclinicity in middle latitudes, and is not sufficient to stop escalating summer drought driven by hotter summers. This shift also leads to a drying in the subtropics (take a look at the long long droughts now affecting the SW US, southern Europe, subtropical South America, southern Australia).

Leif Svalgaard (08:58:05) :
“OT: support SOHO at http://mission-madness.nasa.gov/mm/bracket.html
click on SOHO then submit vote !”
I have logged in and voted for SOHO with every computer in the office.
45% 10754 votes?
I think you need some more votes.

Which begs the question: what drives global warming?
It can’t be due to increases in a tiny trace gas [click]. If CO2, at current concentrations, adds anything at all to global warming, that minuscule effect is overwhelmed by other effects. Its effect is too small to worry about, and it is demonstrably not the driver of global warming.
I keep harping about this since it is being proven by none other than planet Earth herself that CO2 does not matter. And since it doesn’t matter, then the central [and really the only] argument for Cap & Trade, and for labeling CO2 a pollutant, and for carbon credits, and for spending any money at all on CO2 mitigation is money completely wasted.
So when you say ‘driven by global warming’, either you are still — against all the evidence — dreaming that CO2 is the driver of global warming, in which case your credibility is completely shot, or you accept that all except for possibly the tiniest part of global warming is not caused by CO2 — in which case you need to join the skeptics’ side and demand that the government must immediately stop wasting our money on a pointless and futile crusade to control a tiny, beneficial and completely harmless trace gas.
Which is it?

There is now a very short page for the Roman Optimum (warming period)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warm_period
======================
A warm period is an epoch or era, usually lasting a century or more, during which the earth’s average atmospheric temperature is higher than usual. As far back as geological proxy measurements go, each warm period has been followed by a cool period.
According to Dennis Avery, warm periods are associated with climate stability:
* The Earth’s climate is more stable during warm periods. The warming heats the polar regions more than the equatorial regions, reducing temperature differences and thus reducing the power of storms. For instance, Chinese court records indicate far fewer floods and droughts during the Roman Warming of the first century and the Medieval Warming of the 12th century than during the intervening cold Dark Ages and the recent Little Ice Age. [2]
Some scientists believe that warm periods increase the frequency or severity of hurricanes.[1]
[edit] Historical warm and cool periods
Main article: Paleoclimatology
* Holocene climatic optimum – 7,000 B.C. to 3,000 B.C.
* Roman Warm Period – 200 B.C. to A.D. 600
* Dark Ages Cold Period – A.D. 600 to 950
* Medieval Warming – A.D. 950 to 1300
* Little Ice Age – 1300 to 1850
[edit] Notes
1. ^ The 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change rates the probability of such a link as “more likely than not.” [1]
This science article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
=======================
Larry

Adolfo Giurfa (11:16:03) :
E.M.Smith Kind of Deja-Vu with present times, don’ t you think?
“This period corresponds to the time following the Decline of the Roman Empire around 480 and the Plague of Justinian (541-542).”
Unfortunately, that is not the only parallel. There is a regular cycle of empires rising and culture flourishing during the Optimum warm periods and then the collapse of empire and destruction of culture during the following Pessimum or cold periods.
IFF we could learn from this and prepare, we could get off of this wheel of fortune… but we seem incapable as a species.
Younger Dryas – cold period. 11,100 years Before Present. Bond Event 8.
End of the Clovis People in North America. Disruptive cold globally.
Boreal – the following warm period when England and Ireland became islands and Eurasia began the march to civilization:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boreal_(period)
“Those who stayed became hunter-gatherers of the forests and fishers of the numerous bays, inlets and shallow waters around the thousands of islands that now spangled the seas of Europe. They lived richly and were encouraged to enter the pre-productive phase that we call the Mesolithic. Those who moved east hunted out the last of wild big game and turned their best efforts into learning to herd what was left. In the Americas, humans had left the Paleoindian phase and were now in the Archaic.
Meanwhile humanity toward the south of the north temperate zone had already turned to food production in a number of widely separated locations and were on the brink of civilization. ”
Bond Event 7 – un-named about 10,400 BP.
Bond Event 6 – The Erdalen event in Norway and a cold China 9400 BP
Bond Event 5 – 8100 BP. The 8.2 Kiloyear Event. From:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8.2_kiloyear_event
“Cooler and drier conditions prevailed, as in the Younger Dryas though less extreme. Yet the changes may have been severe enough to impact one of the earliest settled human communities: the first phase of Catal Huyuk ended during the 8.2 kiloyear event. The site was abandoned and not re-occupied until about 5 centuries later, when climate conditions had improved markedly.
Drier conditions were notable in North Africa, while East Africa suffered five centuries of general drought. In West Asia and especially Mesopotamia, the 8.2ky event was a three-hundred year aridification and cooling episode, which provided the natural force for Mesopotamian irrigation agriculture and surplus production that were essential for the earliest class-formation and urban life. ”
Bond Event 4 – 5900 BP From:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5.9_kiloyear_event
“The 5.9 kiloyear event was one of the most intense aridification events during the Holocene. It ended the Neolithic Subpluvial and probably initiated the desiccation of the Sahara desert. Thus, it also triggered world-wide migration to river valleys, e.g. from central North Africa to the Nile valley, what eventually led to the emergence of first complex, highly organised, state-level societies in the 4th millennium BC.”
“In the Middle East the 5.9 kiloyear event led to the abrupt end of the Ubaid period.
The 5.9 kiloyear event was also recorded as a cold event in the Erhai Lake (China) sediments.”
Followed by the rise of the Egyptian empire and the birth of civilization.
Bond Event 3 – 4200 BP From:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4.2_kiloyear_event
“The 4.2 kiloyear BP aridification event was one of the most severe climatic events of the Holocene period in terms of impact on cultural upheaval. Starting in ≈2200 BC, it probably lasted the entire 22nd century BC. It is very likely to have caused the collapse of the Old Kingdom in Egypt as well as the Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia. Also, the drought may have initiated southeastward habitat tracking within the Harappan cultural domain.”
“In the Persian Gulf region, there is a sudden change in settlement pattern, style of pottery and tombs at this time. The 22nd century BC drought marks the end of the Umm al-Nar period and the change to the Wadi Suq period.”
“China. The drought may have caused the collapse of Neolithic Cultures around Central China during the late third millennium BC.”
Followed by the rise of the New Kingdom in Egypt and several other cultures flourishing in the following warm period
Bond Event 2 – 2800 BP From:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Age_Cold_Epoch
“The Iron Age Cold Epoch (also referred to as Iron Age climate pessimum or Iron Age neoglaciation) was a period of unusually cold climate in the North Atlantic region, lasting from about 900 BC to about 300 BC, with an especially cold wave in 450 BC during the expansion of ancient Greece. It was followed by the Roman Age Optimum (200 BC – 300 AD).”
Notice that this was about the time that Egypt sliding into ruin and a lot of history of warfare was being written… This wiki page also has the link to the Roman Age Optimum that is now dead… Wouldn’t want to point out that the golden age of Rome was built on the bones of a cold period (and was followed by a cold period collapse) and that the golden age of Egypt was in a prior warm period… and so the cycle turns.
Bond Event 1 – 1400 BP (or about 450 to 900 AD) which used to link to the page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migration_Period_Pessimum that has been eaten by the AGW Langoliers… but:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migration_Period
Gives a PC version where the invasions of people escaping the cold frozen central Eurasian Steps is call “emigration” or “migration”. When I learned that history 40+ years ago we called it war and invasion… but what’s a few armies, swords, murder and mayhem among friends. Just notice that other than the folks in Carthage attacking Rome all the travel seems to be toward the more southern warmer places… wonder why…
It is also called the Dark Ages:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages
Which of course was followed by the Medieval Warm Period:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period
“The Medieval Warm Period was a time of warm weather around AD 800-1300 during the European Medieval period. Initial research on the MWP and the following Little Ice Age (LIA) was largely done in Europe, where the phenomenon was most obvious and clearly documented”
This period was also the lead-in to the Renaissnacehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance
That most of us would admit was a pretty good time for culture and growth of humanity…
Now we have an anomaly. An anomaly to the cold side. We had the Little Ice Age. At about 1/2 the Bond Event cycle, it got cold. We don’t know if this was a 1/2 cycle sub oscillation or was the start of a drop into the next Bond Event and they onset with steps or waves, or just a continuation of the very long term drift to colder weather as we exit this interglacial. An anomaly to the cold side does not argue for warming happening (yet that is what the AGW folks do, but choosing a baseline at the bottom of the LIA).
The Little Ice Age that had a lot of trauma in the world (little things, like Napoleon discovering it was a bad time to invade Russia; and a wholesale emptying of Europe into the new world as they ran away from famine and cold; and the French Revolution when crops failed, and…) That was only a minor taste of what a Bond Event might be. The 178 ish year little brother cycle…
So what does all this mean to me?
This time is not different.
We are in a 10,000 year downward tilting slope into the next ice age.
We have a 1500 year climate cycle that can not be explained nor disappeared. It’s time to get cold. Very cold. And nobody knows why.
We had a preview of what’s to come in the LIA.
We are doing nothing to prepare.
The AGW folks are exactly backwards because they see too short a time frame. They are looking at a minor correction warmer from an unexpected cold interval in a longer term cold trend, and ignoring a proven 1500 year cycle and a 100,000 year glacial cycle.
So now we have the modern optimum. This time it will be different…
(BTW “It’s Different This Time!” is a standard stock traders sarchasm for the folly people regularly show in not learning from their history – It Is never different this time, ever.)
The only good news in all this is that it typically takes a while for empires to collapse and cultures to decay; and we have more technology with which to cope, when we finally realize we ought to be doing something other than watching entertainment and looking for a party. (Shades of Rome…)
So I am quietly hopeful that we can cope, given all the tools we have, and hopeful that the folly of AGW will be shown wrong rather soon; especially given all the snow that stacking up… I give it about 2 years minimum and 15 years maximum.
Then we can start building grain storage, expanding greenhouses, building more power plants, improving hydroponic infrastructure, putting desalination plants near deserts, etc. etc.

Climate is chaotic…..if we are to expect more snow in northern latitudes as some have been arguing today then the Arctic ice will remain and increase.
Polar bears will have plenty of places to play…….and Al Gore will finally be exposed.
It started as Global Warming…and as the temp leveled off and decreased became Climate Change…which is the norm.
Chaotic….
Flannagan please refer to Sun Cycles and have a long chat with a solar physicist like Piers Corbyn.

Flanagan (00:20:39) :
Graeme Rodaughan
Hotter polar regions means more melting AND more evaporation from the seas (even in the winter). So northern regions below the cloud level should undergo more precipitations (as opposed to very high mountains).
The situation is supposed to be different at the tropics and, for what I remember, some intertropical regions are supposed to become drier. Because of the wind patterns. This is all detailled in the IPCC assesment reports – which you should really read one day.
About the clouds: they play a double role. They can reflect part of the sun and altogether absorb IR coming from the surface. It all depends on their composition and/or color.
Flanagan.
[1] What would be the interpretation be “IF” the recent NH Winter had been mild with a light dusting of snow, and a bankrupt skiing industry in Europe and North America?
[2] What amount/coverage of NH Snow would constitute a “Natural” winter?
[3] I’m having trouble discovering the distinction between weather events that can be attributed to man made emissions of CO2 and those that are natural(?) – are you able to provide such a distinction based on measured events – and if not – how do you tell if man made emissions of CO2 are in fact impacting on the Planets Climate and Weather systems?
[4] Are you able to provide a “appropriate/desired” target level of NH Snow such that we can aim at reducing our CO2 emissions to create?
[5] What do you make of the fact that the last NH Summer melt (2008) of the Arctic was less (i.e. more ice left intact) than the previous big melt (2007) and yet both years had cold NH Summers with lots of snow. I.e. the arctic appears to be melting less – and yet there is more cold and snow. Yet you say more melting leads to more snow which contradicts the observations. – Could you please explain the discrepency?
Thanks. G

Pamela Gray sort of beat me to this but missed something.
The ice shelves are floating sea ice, attached at one end to land.
Simple mechanics says that as these shelves grow, the strains on the point of attachment will lead to breakage & therefore detachment. Where’s the problem? A piece of ice floating caused a stress fracture!
DaveE.

I had to laugh this morning, April 6th, when I awoke to find a foot of snow on the ground. I stopped laughing 3/4’s of an hour later when we lost power. It was restored 3 hours later for 15 min, then the second power out which has now just been fixed. I said I didn’t need any more Earth Hours. Trees are crashing all around the house, wet heavy snow will do that. I went out to shake off the forsythia which hasn’t bloomed yet, and I saw all the buds. There were buds, that is. I used to get a sunburn in April. Bring back global warming please.

Smokey (13:44:07) sez:
“DJ: ‘This is driven by global warming…’
Which begs the question: what drives global warming?”
Smokey, DJ said he saved $500 on his annual electric bill by changing to CFL’s. So maybe global warming is driven by the all the lightbulbs on the marquee at DJ’s Bijou Theater.

Meanwhile we have NatGeo, and your old buddy Dr. Meier, misrepresenting the trends of the arctic sea ice:http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/04/090406-sea-ice-younger.html
Instead of highlighting the large year over year increase, they state:
“This winter’s maximum Arctic sea ice extent was 5.85 million square miles (15,150,000 square kilometers)—about 278,000 square miles (720,000 square kilometers) less than the Arctic average between 1979 and 2000. ”
On a related note: Good news! The Dow closed at 7976 today, which is 1743 over the average between 1979 and 2000!

Steve (10:51:56) :
Couldn’t locate the comment you were responding to:
“Thicker ice, which survives two or more years, now comprises only 10 percent of wintertime arctic ice cover, down from 30 percent to 40 percent.”
Interesting application of AGW math. If I use the Roos ice data:http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/ice-area-and-extent-in-arctic
It shows winter high ice area at about 13 million sq. km peak and the summer low at 4 million sq. km. Now for all Warmists in the crowd, here’s where it get’s tough. To arrive at multi-year ice, divide the 4 million more than 1 year ice by the 13 million winter peak to arrive at your multi-year percentage. Enter your answer here _______. (Hint.. it’s not 10%)

AndrewWH (08:09:58) :
So where is the Wilkins Ice Sheet now?
Has it already melted and unleashed a wall of water to flatten coastal cities that is even now bearing down on us?
At his website, Jeff Id had some good photos from space over the recent past:http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/04/05/here-we-go-again/
We’d better get the entire US Navy down there to push this thing out to sea before the winter freeze up traps it and reattaches it to the ice shelf. DJ would be very disappointed.

Poor Flanagan has copped a bit of stick. Personally, I’d like to give my thanks to Flans: it was such an unexpected comment that it gave me a great laugh. Always a great way to start the day!
All I know is that winter is approaching in the Southern Hemisphere, and I’m looking forward to a good ski season. Since Global Warming causes more snow, I’ve voting for Global Warming. Can all you sceptics please keep quiet until summer starts up ‘cause I really want to give my new ski gear a run.
I’ve set my Model for snow this winter, and being a Model, it has to be right!

The official rate of sea level rise has just been downgraded from 3.3mm per year to 3.2mm per year.http://sealevel.colorado.edu/current/sl_noib_ns_global.jpg
Must be all that rampant global warming that is accelerating faster than the models predicted.
Accelerated yes (i.e. changed) – but perhaps the sign of the acceleration (+ve/-ve) is in the wrong direction (once again…)

Yes, here in Ohio’s Miami Valley, we are set to be close to the low temperature record set waaaay back in 1982 before that global warming started, which is much better than the record posted as recently as 1929 of 81oF because of all the CO2 causing global…. what? Oh, I must have the years backwards. I don’t? Oh, then it’s just weather.

DJ, at times I think you are just playing us, getting climate naturalists to post long rebuttals. Then at times I think you are truly a global warmer believer. I haven’t figured out which it is. But there are times when your posts seem trivial and filled with “consider this” and “consider that” without a lot of questioning. And then you impress me with your depth of response. In this thread, not so much. Are you unsure of why record snows and cold temperatures, both highs and lows, are being recorded? How does this mesh with your unfailing belief that it is getting warmer? There are weather stations that report data that go back to the last part of the 19th century. These stations are reporting record cold at night AND during the day. What will you do when these lower temperatures continue to stay around for more years than they have? I take it you consider that oceanic oscillations trump global warming but when oceans turn warm again, we will all fry. Do you understand that warmer oceans evaporate and that evaporation eventually leads to cooling, just as it does on your own skin? Bottom line, your theories and posts at times seem contradictory. Tell me, outside of saying that the IPCC says it, the theoretical basis for your assumptions.
You know mine: heat columns and trade winds around the equatorial belt caused by axial spin. Heat columns build and eventually get caught in the trade winds which begin to blow harder, blowing warmed oceanic water west and away, revealing colder lower layers, which then cool land surfaces. Cooling land surfaces eventually lead to quieter, dryer weather, which calms trade winds, allowing heat columns to build again, till they get caught in axial spin trade winds. These are known climatic events. These events also blow ozone and atmospheric gases around in an unmixed swirling soup.
Now show me yours.

William Rice,
The statement you quote:
“This winter’s maximum Arctic sea ice extent was 5.85 million square miles (15,150,000 square kilometers)—about 278,000 square miles (720,000 square kilometers) less than the Arctic average between 1979 and 2000. ”
is UTTERLY uncontroversial and highly relevant to a trained scientist. Why would a one year trend carry more importance than a consistent deviation from a defined longterm average? Do you understand this?
Honestly, the ignorance on proud display at this site is breathtaking.

The IPCC is the biggest bunch of liars there is I don’t trust anything they have to say. They are the paid goons of the UN. There is no manmade anything to do with the weather period. Ice melts and grows every year at the north and south pole. I have been watching the ice melt at the south pole all summer and there has been virtually none from what I can see. I saw an article recently where Obama wants to stop ships going to the north saying it will help the environment. The only thing it would help is his lies. The less people to see the ice obviously would mean there is less Ice. This is the dumbest debate in the history of the world. Everyone of the morons that fall for this climate change crap or global warming or any of it are falling into the sinister hands of the UN and all other forms of freedom theft.

Science is apolitical. The earth does not care whether your inclinations take you to the Left or the Right. Good scientists, the vast majority of climatologists, are also apolitical, though the majority of people reading this, who have very little contact with how real science is done, will doubtless have convinced themselves otherwise.
The AGW picture has taken decades of hard work, which is obviously still continuing to this day, to build. It is a result of where the facts lead a truly disinterested observer. There is no conspiracy, most scientists are quite honest about the gaps in their knowledge, what they do and don’t know, with what level of certainty they do or don’t know it and what could be done to improve this (or indeed what would disprove it).
One of the areas that is not in doubt is the consensus that our CO2 contribution is warming the climate globally. This is only controversial in little back eddies of the internet like this, which will not change anything. Thankfully most global leaders (including major oil/gas companies believe it or not) realise this and are taking steps to remedy it. The sad part is, it may already be too late now to stop a major phase shift, but it is too early to say this with scientific precision. It remains a very valid possibility though.

Oh and just think there are still towns on Greenland that have been buried by glaciers for thousands of years. Duh I wonder if that means the earth was warmer once. It must have been all those cars and factories that must have been around thousands of years ago. Or just maybe this is just how the climate is it warms and it cools sometimes it gets warmer than other times sometimes it gets colder than other times. I can guarantee one thing for sure solar activity and the eccentric rotation of the Earth and its wobble on its axis and all of its other quirks have the only real thing to do with the earths climate. Man has absolutely nothing to do with the climate changing it is idiotic and harmful to mans survival to think otherwise.

<Matt Bennett (20:00:17) :
William Rice,
The statement you quote:
“This winter’s maximum Arctic sea ice extent was 5.85 million square miles (15,150,000 square kilometers)—about 278,000 square miles (720,000 square kilometers) less than the Arctic average between 1979 and 2000. ”
is UTTERLY uncontroversial and highly relevant to a trained scientist. Why would a one year trend carry more importance than a consistent deviation from a defined longterm average? Do you understand this?
Honestly, the ignorance on proud display at this site is breathtaking.
Matt,
William’s point is not so relevant, but the story linked to does indeed misrepresent science, claiming this year’s maximum extent as a continued decline, just as the Times Online did with the same press release.
The story also contains nonsense like this, so I wouldn’t be so quick to defend:Even so, vanishing sea ice poses severe hardships to Arctic plants and animals—including humans—that have evolved to coexist with the ice.
And a beautiful closing:“It really is unprecedented, what we’ve been seeing, for centuries and maybe thousands of years.”
The departure from the 1979-2000 average is unprecendented for thousands of years?

DJ (01:27:11) :
“Meanwhile very long lived ice sheets keep falling off the Antarctic – http://www.theage.com.au/environment/antarctic-ice-shelf-near-final-collapse-20090406-9tvx.html
as a direct result of warming.”
DJ is one of several of those commenting who confuse ice sheets with ice shelves. Ice shelves are floating as they cover inlets or bays. Somewhat like frozen lakes, only generally much larger. The largest ice shelf in Antarctica (or anywhere else) is the Ross Ice Shelf, which is roughly the size of France and is roughly a half mile thick. Ice sheets are land based and are HUGE! The Western Atlantic Ice Sheet (WAIS), which contains enough water so that it would raise the ocean level by seven feet if it were to slide into the Atlantic, is in the bantam weight class of ice sheets. The Eastern Atlantic Ice Sheet (EAIS), which lies on the other side of the Transantarctic Mountains from the WAIS, is, according to Wikipedia, roughly ten times larger. So I am sure that DJ will be relieved to learn that Antarctic ice sheets aren’t in the process of breaking off and falling into the ocean.
My understanding is that the Greenland Ice Sheet and the EAIS are stable, meaning that they sit in saucer-like indentations and so are not subject to being pulled down a slope by gravity. The same is not the case for the WAIS, which apparently would collapse and slide into the Atlantic except for held back from doing so by the Ross Ice Shelf. However, the jocker here is that the Ross Ice Shelf itself collapses every so often. For example, I understand that there is evidence for such a collapse (accompanied by a major rise of sea level) during each of the last four interglacial periods.
I wonder if the collapse of the Ross Ice Shelf followed by big hunks of the WAIS sliding into the sea over a period of a few hundred years might not act as a trigger for the onset of a new glacial period. This would certainly have the same effect as putting ice cibes om a g;ass of water, resulting in much colder oceans.

Pamela,
Leaving a long-winded waffle about what ‘you think’ happens in the atmosphere is no substitute for research. To that end, I suggest you get a good book on meteorology and start reading – that is the topic your post is talking about.
Now, if it’s climate you’re interested in, you better start on the physics, esp thermodynamics and radiative forcings, and start realising that the same things that determine weather DO NOT determine climate.

Matt Bennett (20:00:17) :
Why would a one year trend carry more importance than a consistent deviation from a defined longterm average? Do you understand this?
It doesn’t, nor did he say it does. The hypocrisy, however, in only reporting in a a manner on that favors the desired viewpoint is obvious. A record breaking advance is worth at least a mention, don’t you think?Honestly, the ignorance on proud display at this site is breathtaking.
Indeed, your ignorance, and arrogance, is breathtaking.
Mark

Anthony, when are we going to have a post about the fact that we just saw the collapse of the tenth major ice shelf to disintergrate since 1950? This is consistent with the reported 2-3 degree C warming of the Antarctic Peninsula and is unlikely to be the last. Given that there is a clear pattern and given that you claim to be a disinterested, objective, scientific blog where is the news of this clear warming trend? Or would it not please the acolytes?REPLY: Matt you amaze me, on one hand you insult, on the other you demand articles. For example, I could paraphrase your recent comment and say: “the arrogance displayed in your comment is breathtaking”. But, why not learn some proper manners first before asking? If your response to this is to be of the same caliber of vitriol just displayed in the last few comments, be assured your post will be snipped. Learn manners if you are truly interested in discussion and debate. If your only purpose here is to denigrate, then adios. – Anthony

Eric (skeptic) (06:40:26) :
…
So it doesn’t matter if a climate model can predict yesterday’s snowfall or not, but it does matter that it models snowfall events in general.
…

Eric, to take it a little bit further, as Dr. Thune from NASA (Hansen’s old boss) so eloquently pointed out, the mere fact that most of the models do model past climate so closely (almost perfectly), should give one pause. If you can program a model to mimic past climate so accurately, you cannot possibly be modeling a complex chaotic system with any accuracy whatsoever. What are the odds of replicating past climate perfectly by averaging 4000 runs of computer model data? I would be willing to bet that the odds of winning the PowerBall are much better!

Philip G. (06:53:22) :
I’m pretty sure global warming will be blamed for the flooding when all this snow melts..

They already beat you to the punch concerning the Fargo, ND flooding! Obama himself virtual said as much (certainly hinted at it). I know for fact the flooding there has nothing in the universe to do with any sort of Globull Warming!
I lived there for 25 years, and what you have seen this year is not all the extraordinary. My old house was right on the 100 year floodplain. There is a reason why it is called the “100 year floodplain”, because it floods on average, every 100 years! duh… However, my old neighbor tells me that they are just fine, which means, this has not been a 100 year flood! The only thing that has flooded there are the rivers, which do every year. The only thing different from year to year is by how much. This year by quite a bit, setting a new record river crest for the Red River (none of the other rivers set records), and not by all that much (like 0.6 feet, I would have to go look it up again). The flood of 1997 was much much worse because of the 139 inches of snow that melted so quickly that year. Also, this was NOT the snowiest year in North Dakota, it was the snowiest December only (as has been presented on this site).
But, no matter, these events will continue to be spun into Globull Warming BS (bad science) in order to continue to drive agenda. It is all spiraling out of control (IMHO). We just need to continue to present the true facts to anyone who will listen and pray that it finally begins to in.

Steven goddard wrote: “Global warming means whatever the current weather is – because the current weather is (of course) due to global warming. Scientists who believe in catastrophic global warming agree that there is a consensus amongst like-minded individuals.”
LMAO!

Matt Bennet,
Are you a trained scientist? What are your credentials, or are you speaking on behalf of all trained scientists? I ask only because most trained scientists (at least with any background in statistics) would know why this is a fraudulent statistic. It is misleading because:
a) 1979-2000 is a completely arbitrary period to set as the baseline, which doesn’t even include the year in question. Why not 1933-1947?
b) As in any time series (like the stock market), the current value is highly dependent on the most recent values. If sea ice is recently increasing (which is what we are supposed to be most worried about, isn’t it?), then using the arbritrary baseline period completely disguises this fact. We routinely see similarly deceptive stats such as “7 of the 10 hottest years on record were in the last decade” (the actual stat keeps changing as Hansen keeps rewriting history, but you get the idea). This stat obviously hides the fact that recent years, although warm relative to long term averages, have been trending down. Such statistics are clearly designed to manipulate opinion, and not to tell the real story of the data.
c) Sea ice extent is not a steady state process, so you have no basis for claiming that a “consistent deviation from a defined long term average” has any relevance (and as stated in “a”, you have no basis for defining your so called long term average).
Would you care to give an example of a trained scientist that finds such a statistic highly relevant?
You warmists can’t make your case without throwing out an insult, can you?

It’s ok Matt, we’ll let you get away with it.
What IS, however, incontrovertible is that climate cycles around in 70 year cycles, and that has been documented since the 1400s. So I’d actually kind of like to know what sort of proud, breathtaking ignorance takes less than HALF of this well known and well documented cycle and uses that to “prove” a “consistent deviation from a defined longterm average”?
Maybe your eminence could enlighten us all. If you understand this.

“Why would a one year trend carry more importance than a consistent deviation from a defined longterm average? Do you understand this?
Honestly, the ignorance on proud display at this site is breathtaking.”
Twenty-one years is a long term average? Precisely how long have the icecaps been melting and freezing, sir? The type of breathless parsing you quoted is much worse than ignorance, it is advocacy.

Did you think that you spent an inordinate amount of time with a shovel in you hands this winter in a losing battle with the white stuff? Well, you’re on to something: Our average Nov. to Mar. snowfall is 87 cm. Since the beginning of Nov. to the end of Mar. ’09, we have been dumped on with 155 cm. This is a new record (at least to this point in the winter/spring season), and our records date all the way back to 1885! The next closest winters were ’23-’24, and ’24-25, each (remarkably) with 149 cm. So, unless you’re a Calgary resident and over 125 yr. old, this is something nobody here has experienced. Historic times in Cowtown…

At science daily here:http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090406132602.htm
Research Professor James Maslanik, who led the 2008 study published in Geophysical Research Letters.
“A key question will be whether this second year ice is thick enough to survive summer melt,” said Maslanik.
“If it does, this might start a trend toward recovery of the perennial sea ice pack,”
It seems that at least one scientist is hedging his bets…

Matt Bennett wrote:“Why would a one year trend carry more importance than a consistent deviation from a defined longterm average? Do you understand this? Honestly, the ignorance on proud display at this site is breathtaking.”
Because leading warmists, such as Gore and Hansen, claimed and/or implied a year ago:
1. That a one-year deviation in the trend in 2007 (in the warm direction) was a portent of a change in the slope of the long-term ice-retreat trend. This was implied by their saying, “Things are worse than we thought,” “We have less time than we thought,” and “We will soon see ice-free Arctic summers.”
2. That this confirmed that there was an accelerating global warming trend due to CO2. (Such accelerating, or runaway, behavior is predicted by their CO2 models, so they were primed to see any evidence of acceleration-in-warming as a validation of their models and vice versa.)
3. That this demonstrated the need for urgent and extreme CO2 mitigation measures, expense be damned.
So we’re entitled to hoist them on their petard, now that their claim of an accelerating and dire warming trend has been falsified. If the warmists hadn’t given us the rope, there’d be no lynching.

William Rice (15:38:56) :
“Meanwhile we have NatGeo, and your old buddy Dr. Meier, misrepresenting the trends of the arctic sea ice:
Instead of highlighting the large year over year increase, they state:
“This winter’s maximum Arctic sea ice extent was 5.85 million square miles (15,150,000 square kilometers)—about 278,000 square miles (720,000 square kilometers) less than the Arctic average between 1979 and 2000. ” ”
Over at CT the maximum ice area on record in 1979 and 1988 is 15 X 10^6 Km2. Since the Artic is bounded by land its area and extent has an upper limit.

Anthony,
You’re obviously a smart guy (I mean that), why then do you let misinformation propogate so freely from your ‘balanced’ website? This is an honest question, not at all a snipe. You surely know that the jump in sea ice from summer to winter varies hugely, the magnitude of which has been over double what it was this year in the recent past. You also know that a rebound to anywhere near average from a record depletion is going to necessarily be a big jump – a big jump but an UTTERLY irrelevant number. Why then would you let that sort of misinformation continue to spread if you are as open-minded as you say you are?
The LONG term trend is undoubtedly down (see below graph). I’m just intrigued as to why you would let that sort of distorted analysis through and snip at someone like me when I point it out. Why don’t you correct them, so your site maintains integrity?http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2008/09/arctic-sea-ice-recovered-in-2008.php
(Graph at top of page)
William Rice, the average is chosen over that period because that’s when the useful satellite data series begins, nothing sinister. Just like the standardised time period for global surface temps is often around 1960-1990. It has presumably been this way since a long enough data series was first established.
Why don’t you tell me, why would you suddenly CHANGE your reference point if it has been in use since long before denialists had anything to deny?REPLY: I didn’t see an apology in there anywhere for your behaviour, only a shift in focus. And then there’s that word again. If you want debate, lose the ad homs and labels, otherwise find another blog to bother. – Anthony

CodeTech,
Oh you’re so generous.
Let’s have a peer-reviewed citation for your ‘incontravertible’ claim that climate moves in 70 year cycles and that this is all that recent warming has been caused by. My goodness, what has the IPCC been worrying about all this time?
And I’m sorry, but the arrogance lies firmly on the side that says they can safely dispense with decades of carefully gleaned knowledge from thousands of climate specialists, chemists and physicists and proudly claim that they know better “cos they’s read a blog”. Now THAT’S a special type of arrogance.

The final point to be noted about increases in sea ice over winter (besides the fact that they’re going to happen – duh) is that what’s forming is new thin ice, typically only a metre or so thick, if that. This is MUCH more susceptible to rapid remelting in the following summer, compared to the enormous amounts of multi-metre thick ice that was permanently lost in a winter like 07-08. The trend will continue to be down.
Does anyone here arguing this point actually genuinely believe that we will not sea an ice-free arctic in the coming summers (say in a decade or two) based on watching the satellite image changes from 1979?

Mr. Bennett, historically, climate has been determined by your address (seasonal axial tilt, longitude, latitude, and altitude, along with proximity to large bodies of water). Things that affect weather patterns within climate zones (your address) include pollutants, oceanic oscillations, land use practices, cloud cover, etc. Climate is stable, weather patterns are not. Can you tell me, based on your address and what climate zone you live in, how CO2 (with the assumption that it will cause the air to warm) will affect your weather patterns? If you live in an arid climate away from ocean breezes, you might green up under global warming. If, on the other hand, we have global cooling, you will turn into dust which will get blown into the air, caught in wind patterns, and probably land in an ocean somewhere.
There are two things that can affect climate zones: Continental drift and uplift/subduction to a different longitude/latitude/altitude, and the long-cycled axial wobble that creates a much greater slant to our seasonal axial tilt away from the Sun.
The question once again: What will warmer air do to the weather patterns in your area/climate zone?

Does anyone here arguing this point actually genuinely believe that we will not sea an ice-free arctic in the coming summers (say in a decade or two) based on watching the satellite image changes from 1979?

Do you genuinely not understand a sine wave and not realize that there is good evidence that the Arctic has been ice free in summer in the past, and yet, we have had Ice in the Arctic in summer, lo, these last hundred years or so.

Matt Bennett (20:00:17) : ” Why would a one year trend carry more importance than a consistent deviation from a defined longterm average? Do you understand this? ”
1979 – 2000 is not long term. Do you understand this?
“deviaton from a defined longterm average”. The “defined” part is carefully chosen to produce specific anomolies. Do you understand this?
[snip]

Matt Bennett,
Nothing sinister? So why cut off your “baseline period” at 2000? The answer is because this is when it started to trend down, so comparing the current value to a period when the ice extent was larger makes the current value seem smaller. You don’t see this as an attempt to manipulate?
What I find sinister and arrogant is you and your kind’s constant demands to shut off viewpoints and voices that don’t agree with yours. If your evidence was strong, you would not need to silence your critics.
This is not a steady process, nor is 1979-2000 a relevant period to determine such, so the statistic is clearly designed to manipulate. I am not saying that a one or two year trend says everything about the data either, but it certainly is more relevant to the claims of doom and gloom than a bogus comparison against an arbitrary baseline average.
Your sea ice thickness comments are repeating the same guesses of others. If you repeat it long enough, it becomes the truth, right? There is no hard data to prove this point. Please correct me if I’m wrong with references (no, computer models are not proof). Besides, the only portion of the ice for which this possibly could be relevant is the ice area that doesn’t melt during the summer. Since the ice extent grew summer over summer, and appears to be on it’s way to another year of recovery, this doesn’t appear to be a cause for catastrophic doom and gloom. So yes, I would wager that we will not see an ice free arctic in 2 decades.
Your faith in the UN and their IPCC is very heart warming. I prefer reason over faith. What has the IPCC been worried about? A better question would be: What has the UN ever accomplished in our lifetimes, besides spending more money and empowering dictators? The UN is simply after more power, and the global warming scare is simply a big power play and money grab, for which many special intersests are jumping in on.
There is no consensus, by the way (nor does it matter, truth is not up to a vote)…plenty of scientists disagree with your unproven theories, so please don’t bring that weak appeal to authority. Try bringing facts and evidence. If the knowledge was so “carefully gleaned”, then why did your boys fail to predict the last decade of cooling? And why is every new report titled “scientists say that XXXX worse than expected”? If the knowledge is so infallable (and if the science were settled), they would have expected it!

“Does anyone here arguing this point actually genuinely believe that we will not sea an ice-free arctic in the coming summers (say in a decade or two) based on watching the satellite image changes from 1979?”
Count me as one who does not genuinely believe…
Mike Bryant

Matt Bennet…
You’re funny, but you failed to enlighten anyone. All you did was deny. You denialist, you.

My goodness, what has the IPCC been worrying about all this time?

Their existence? How to keep the scientifically illiterate rubes stressed and worried over a non-issue? Fabricating… massaging… altering historical climate records? Who cares? The IPCC has demonstrated that they have little or nothing to do with Science and everything to do with politics.
You actually don’t see your extreme arrogance, do you?
No, we won’t see an ice-free Arctic in the coming summers. The Arctic has been here before, and that was documented by the Chicken Littles of the day. But hey, you go right on believing unsupportable predictions and thinking you’re better than everyone else. Let us know how that’s working out for you.

Matt Bennett:
I know there’s nothing “sinister” about the time line of 1979 to present. It’s simply all the satelite data we have. The issue with starting in 1979 is that is the end of a cooling period, and over all we are recovering from the Little Ice Age. Of course on the larger climate scale (hundreds of thousands of years) the current interglacial has been rather stable, as previous interglacials have spiked at higher temperatures. Based on previous interglacials and ice ages, we could be in for a shock when the next ice age starts.

is MUCH more susceptible to rapid remelting in the following summer, compared to the enormous amounts of multi-metre thick ice that was permanently lost in a winter like 07-08
So, once the ice starts melting, it can never recover?

We will never see an ice free arctic if you mean no ice anywhere in the Arctic. If you mean the Northwest Passage, it has been open several times in history without icebreakers. The first known successful navigation by ship was in 1905. It was also open in the 1940’s but not at present even with icebreakers.
As for that thin new ice, a NASA study published in the peer-reviewed journal Geophysical Research Letters on October 4, 2007 found “unusual winds” in the Arctic blew “older thicker” ice to warmer southern waters. Despite the media’s hyping of global warming, Ignatius Rigor, a co-author of the NASA study, explained, “While the total Arctic area of ice cover in recent winters has remained about the same, during the past two years an increased amount of older, thicker perennial sea ice was swept by winds out of the Arctic Ocean into the Greenland Sea. What grew in its place in the winters between 2005 and 2007 was a thin veneer of first-year sea ice, which simply has less mass to survive the summer melt.” “Unusual atmospheric conditions set up wind patterns that compressed the sea ice, loaded it into the Transpolar Drift Stream and then sped its flow out of the Arctic,” said Son Nghiem of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and leader of the study.

Matt,
I think you are wrong and I’d bet big money on it. Would you?
Have you seen the enormous increase in ice the last 16 months? Have you looked at the temperature records set in the North this winter? And the huge amounts of snow the last two winters? We’ve seen year over year increases the last two winters in snowfall and glacier growth. The rate of change is massively towards increasing ice in the next few years.
I’ve spent a lot of time going over the ice data as well as reading both Western explorers’ diaries and Ethnological anecdotes. I’ve also looked at proxies such as fire records and freeze records for the US.
Its pretty clear that the 1930s were much warmer than today for most of North America. Much of the Arctic was ice free at that time. There were enoromous fires across much of the Boreal forest during the 30s. The US from the 1900s to the 1950s did not see much in the way of Arctic outbreaks and the weather was unusually mild, allowing citrus farms to become established in Florida, California, and the Rio Grande Valley.
The late 70s and early 80s saw the return of severe cold across the Northern Hemisphere including McFarland events that pushed freezing weather all the way to the Darien Gap in central America that destroyed much of the citrus crop. Having high ice years is to be expected.
Furthermore, the Norse report ice free summers for much of the early middle ages. The Innuit and Tlingit oral histories paint much the same picture during the early middle ages. The rate and density of Innuit and Norse settlements at that time have yet to be rivalled even today. The bone isotope studies of fauna from middens on the Arctic from that period show a much warmer Arctic than today.
Going further back, there is something called “Arctic Hysteria” from 10000 to 4000 BC where mammoth hunters in Siberia saw an explosion in population in the high latititudes as well as an explosion in art and other cultural artifacts – hence the term “hysteria”. There are some preliminary sediment and treeline studies that hold that the Arctic was totally ice free during the climate optimum.
So, picking a high ice year then looking that the trends that culminate in a high wind summer, then ignoring the massive swing back the last two years, and ignoring the other swings in the past, places your assertion on very thin ice.

This is the funny part:
On September 14, 2007, the European Space Agency stated that, based on satellite images, ice loss had opened up the passage “for the first time since records began in 1978”. According to the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, the latter part of the 20th century and the start of the 21st had seen marked shrinkage of ice cover. The extreme loss in 2007 rendered the passage “fully navigable”. However, the ESA study was based only on analysis of satellite images and could in practice not confirm anything about the actual navigation of the waters of the passage. The ESA suggested the passage would be navigable “during reduced ice cover by multi-year ice pack” (namely sea ice surviving one or more summers) where previously any traverse of the route had to be undertaken during favourable seasonable climatic conditions or by specialist vessels or expeditions. The agency’s report speculated that the conditions prevalent in 2007 had shown the passage may “open” sooner than expected. An expedition in May 2008 reported that the passage was not yet continuously navigable even by an icebreaker and not yet ice-free.

Matt Bennett (05:37:35) :…decades of carefully gleaned knowledge from thousands of climate specialists, chemists and physicists
ROTFL! Way to try to sell the CAGW/CC product, Matt. You’ve not only guzzled the climate fruit punch, but you seem to have purchased shares in the factory cranking out that bilge.

Eve (07:44:45) :
We will never see an ice free arctic if you mean no ice anywhere in the Arctic. If you mean the Northwest Passage, it has been open several times in history without icebreakers. The first known successful navigation by ship was in 1905. It was also open in the 1940’s but not at present even with icebreakers.
Yet 6 yachts sailed through the passage last summer, without the aid of icebreakers!

Matt Bennett (21:13:52) :
“… the fact that we just saw the collapse of the tenth major ice shelf to disintergrate [sic] since 1950? This is consistent with the …”

yada, yada, yada.
If it is the tenth since 1950, it would also be consistent with, umm, let’s see, lots of ice being formed in the last 58 years or so and having to go somewhere. Wonder where all that ice came from?

hotrod (13:59:43) :
This article may also interest as it associates cold climes with severe storms. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2496902/Lord-Nelson-and-Captain-Cooks-shiplogs-question-climate-change-theories.html most of the text included below.
Also this link speaks of a reduction in the predicted number of Atlantic Hurricanes this season, the Precautionary principle in action. 🙂http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.89f94643ff57e11b42acfa11b92f8e26.d41&show_article=1
By Tom Peterkin
Last Updated: 11:56AM BST 04 Aug 2008
Lord Nelson and Captain Cook’s shiplogs question climate change theories
A paper by Dennis Wheeler, a geographer based at Sunderland University, recounts an increasing number of summer storms over Britain in the late 17th century Photo: AP
Scientists have uncovered a treasure trove of meteorological information contained in the detailed logs kept by those on board the vessels that established Britain’s great seafaring traditition including those on Nelsons’ Victory and Cook’s Endeavour.
Every Royal Naval ship kept a detailed record of climate including air pressure, wind strength, air and sea temperature and major meteorological disturbances.
A group of academics and Met Office scientists has unearthed the records dating from the 1600s and examined more than 6,000 logs, which have provided one of the world’s best sources for long-term weather data.
Their studies have raised questions about modern climate change theories. A paper by Dennis Wheeler, a geographer based at Sunderland University, recounts an increasing number of summer storms over Britain in the late 17th century.
Many scientists believe that storms are caused by global warming, but these were came during the so-called Little Ice Age that affected Europe from about 1600 to 1850.
The records also suggest that Europe saw a spell of rapid warming, similar to that experienced today, during the 1730s that must have been caused naturally.
“British archives contain more than 100,000 Royal Navy logbooks from around 1670 to 1850 alone,” Mr Wheeler said. “They are a stunning resource. Global warming is a reality, but our data shows climate science is complex. It is wrong to take particular events and link them to carbon dioxide emissions.
“These records will give us a much clearer picture of what is really happening.”

Many low-temperature records established in the last couple of days across the plains, midwest, and south. Snow is falling again in the Sierras. Another massive cold front is bearing down on Washington state.

Mike Bryant (23:52:25) :
…
The type of breathless parsing you quoted is much worse than ignorance, it is advocacy.
Thanks Mike – I had never considered that advocacy was worse than ignorance.
Interesting.

Pamela Gray wrote: “If you live in an arid climate away from ocean breezes, you might green up under global warming. If, on the other hand, we have global cooling, you will turn into dust which will get blown into the air, caught in wind patterns, and probably land in an ocean somewhere.”
I’m sorry but that was worth repeating. Pamela the Poet is at it again. You kill me, Pamela. Can I use that two-liner someday with your permission?
;~)
Chris
Norfolk, VA

Other than the Vikings who sailed the Arctic with ease in the Medieval Warm Period, there have been many tries at passing through the Northwest Passage and some sucesses in the 20th century.
– 100 years ago, Amundsen became the first to navigate the Northwest Passage, from 1903 to 1906, on Gjöa.
– Since then, about 25 sailboats have successfully completed the passage, the most recent being: «Vagabond», in 2003 from the East to the West; «Nuage», in 2001/2002…
I loved the Canadian group that sailed through on an ice yacht so they could sail in the water and over the ice.
This hardly means the Arctic is ice free. Matt, please let me know when there is no ice anywhere to be found on this planet. Then we will no longer be in an ice age and that has happened before also.

“Matt Bennett (05:37:35) : decades of carefully gleaned knowledge from thousands of climate specialists,”
Shouldn’t you have said “cherry picked” instead of “gleaned”?
And I don’t think they were so careful when they went about it. Their clumsy, even barbaric, Mann Hockey Stick Graph that does away with the Medieval Warm Period is some pretty sloppy work.

Check out this real-time web cam this April 8th early in the AM at Beech Mountain, North Carolina [the highest incorporated town in eastern North America at 5,000 feet].http://www.highcountrywebcams.com/webcameras_Beech_Charlies.htm
Temp: 19F
Snowfall: 6.5 inches
THIS IS VERY HARD TO DO INTHE GOOD OLE’ SOUTH in the Spring, especially since our magnolia-producin’ spanish moss-wavin’ sultry cousin (her initials are AMO) is in her warm “period”.
[Sorry—snippable LOL]
I venture to guess that her bigger, badder cousin [she is a female gladiator no doubt], her initials are P.D.O. [think PMS] is already at that point in her cycle and she is exerting her cyclic influence on all the other girls [as alpha females tend to do].
Hell hath no fury…..
I know when my mom is mad at me its like the earth stood still [or at least slowed a bit]. i can’t imagine what it would be like to have PDO or AMO mad at me at the same time {and Pamela Gray mad at me as well].
Yikes. Perhaps this late season snow is a harbinger of the wrath of PDO, she is already making herself known.
Run for the floridas! Or the ski-slopes…depending on your pleasure
Chris
Norfolk, VA

Once cold settles in as an entire entity, the weather systems should calm to just plain ars cold with equally cold dry wind. It is the clash of warm and cold fronts and different pressure systems that cause storms. But once the cold covers like a blanket, like it does during ice ages, the ice sheets just continue to grow southward year in and year out. The edge is snowy and stormy, to be sure, but the interior will be freezing cold with wind that sucks whatever warmth you have out and gone in minutes. It is so cold, you will wish for snow! In a word, it is “stupid” cold.

“Eve (20:25:38) : many tries at passing through the Northwest Passage and some sucesses in the 20th century”
Both sides already know this. I suppose there could be some new comers and it would be great for them to know about this.
But the AGW alarmist side knows this. They will never mention it though. They will just act like the Northwest Passage opening two summers ago was something totally new and highly unusual. That’s their game plan. They talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, putting up a smoke screen– and don’t care about the truth.

Pamela Gray wrote: “Pamela Gray wrote: “I’ve worked in the Ivory towers of research and published. It is anything BUT apolitical. I became very disillusioned very quickly.”
All the aforementioned observations precisely why your opinion and elegant posts are valued very highly….
Chris
Norfolk, VA

HEADLINE :
“Expert Says Arctic Ocean Will Soon Be an Open Sea”
Recent news? No
New York Times, February 20, 1969
from article :
“In fact Dr. Budyko (Dr,. Mikhail I. Budyko) argues that an ice-free Arctic Ocean is the “normal” situation.”
The current conditions in the Arctic are nothing new.

“Pamela Gray (20:37:15) : It is anything BUT apolitical.”
“Science is not value neutral. Science has a political dimension that is determined by the person who funds the science. So, it is by no means pure.”
–Dr. Gary Shiller, M.D. at UCLA, from “Voices of the Shoah”

Anthony,
I apologise unreservedly for the tone of my posts and will do my best to keep it polite and relevant henceforth.
It is very interesting to see though, just how partisan, snide and crude can be the commentary here, generally with reference to hard working scientists and educators, without the slightest indication that it has stimulated the moderators
to even lift a finger. It seems it’s a bit of a one way street. Your pejorative, I realise, but it doesn’t do much for your claims of balance to be so touchy about genuine dissent, while giving right-wing conspiracy rants free rein. Interesting.
Austin,
I sure would put my money on it, what’s the bet?
Your post above is full of stories about localised or hemispherical trends and is not really that pertinent to the global average. While you’ve been shovelling snow, we’ve been recovering bodies from infernos that raged across unprecedently hot/dry forests, with temps hitting 120 degrees (in your units). It all balances out – ALMOST. The problem lies in the ‘almost’. When you take the temp of the globe annually it’s trending strongly up over the long term. This won’t stop while we’re pumping the CO2 into the atmosphere.
Let me ask you, where exactly will it leave your opinion if, for arguments sake, over the next five to ten years we have two or three more record-breaking years and the anomoly moves to +1 degree C above average while the summer sea ice sets another record low? Would you consider that you might be wrong and that the scientists whose job it is to work these things out actually do know what they’re talking about?
To those of you who think it’s naive or ‘touching’ for me to trust the up-to-date findings of climatologists, I would ask you – do you have your own special (and supposedly equally valid) versions of general relativity, quantum mechanics or biochemical evolution? Or are you willing to hand over to the experts on these ones because they don’t clash overtly with your politics?

“To those of you who think it’s naive or ‘touching’ for me to trust the up-to-date findings of climatologists,”
Who on being challenged cannot reproduce their data or the massaging they have performed on it. There are enough real scientists around to realize that when these grant-hunting charlatans say “You’ve got to believe us, because we are REAL scientists” then it is time to make sure they start behaving scientifically.
So yes, Matt Bennett, I think you are dangerously naive for believing ‘scientists’ who will not behave scientifically.
You challenge sceptics to face the facts if warming turns out to true, but there are three extremely stupid people pushing their nomination for a Darwin Award to the very limit right now.
How can you guys tell what a fact is?

Matt Bennett (01:23:12) : “When you take the temp of the globe annually it’s trending strongly up over the long term. This won’t stop while we’re pumping the CO2 into the atmosphere.”
OK Matt, what should the correct temperature of the globe be? Was it the temperature in 1979? How about 1934? How about 1867? How about 1254 or maybe 930? Once you determine that can we all vote to get a concensus? I vote for a constant 88F with SST 85F, annual rainfall at 70″, light breezes with occasional stronger winds (for the sailors and hangliders). While we are at it, why don’t we vote for 16 hours of daylight everyday, I could get in a lot more golf that way.

Sandy,
Your distorted view of the way science works is so far from reality I wouldn’t know where to start. The fact that you and many others round these parts insist on using words like “grant-hunting”, “alarmism”, “wacko”, “Al Gorian”, “Left loonie”, “freedom stealing”, “tax-grabbing” etc (to name just a handful I’ve seen on here) shows that, for these people, the issue is a political one. Science only describes what is, not what should be. That’s what I mean by it’s apoliticality. Of course, given that science is carried out by humans, it is inescapable that there will be conflicts of interest and political advocacy. But at the end of the day, there’s no hoax, no conspiracy, no real disagreement about the CO2 causation amongst those best placed to comment and certainly no claim that we know everything there is to know about this issue.
This whole picture we have of what is going on globally does not rely on Al Gore or computer models or one particular set of adjusted data. It is the result of literally millions of (wo)man hours of exhaustive investigation along multiple lines of converging evidence and those who think it stands or falls on one paper or another are sadly mistaken. You should try reading the peer-reviewed literature for a first-hand account of how they came to work all this out. It is complicated and the picture is ever gaining resolution but the key finding that CO2 is the over-riding forcing AT THIS TIME (not always, maybe not even mostly but right now) is not in doubt amongst those whose work passes peer review. As I say, do you have problems/opinions with other areas of science or is this the only area where you can’t trust genuine research? Remember that you enjoy whatever standard of living you do have thanks almost entirely to this rigorous process. I somehow doubt it is broken just because it may be politically expedient to wish it so.
That is what I mean by the extreme arrogance of people on here to assume they know better than someone whose life’s work they are criticizing. Trying to understand why climatologists have reached their conclusions and deferring to their better judgement is driven not by naivity, but by humility.

“Science is not value neutral. Science has a political dimension that is determined by the person who funds the science. So, it is by no means pure.”
I have been close to pure research for decades and agree wholeheartedly. Last I checked scientists were either men or women.

“Let me ask you, where exactly will it leave your opinion if, for arguments sake, over the next five to ten years we have two or three more record-breaking years and the anomoly moves to +1 degree C above average while the summer sea ice sets another record low? Would you consider that you might be wrong and that the scientists whose job it is to work these things out actually do know what they’re talking about?”
Matt, are you willing to change your opinion if the anomoly continues to drop and arctic sea ice continues to recover?
This paraphrase is one of my favorites: “yes, we know it was warmer in the MWP, we dont’ know why, but we know it’s not the same thing (CO2) that’s driving the climate now” I wish I saved the link to this article. Over a short term (last 100 years) a good case is made for co2 driving the climate. Unfortunately, at least for me, it breaks down after that. When you look at ice core data, you realize we are several degrees above “normal” for 100k+ year averages. Other interglacial periods have peaked at a higher temperature than the current interglacial. In fact, this interglacial has apparently had a more stable tempature. And much to humankinds demise, this interglacial will come to an end.

Matt Bennett (05:55:04) :
You should try reading the peer-reviewed literature for a first-hand account of how they came to work all this out.
Based on what I have seen, what passes for peer review in the climate community is pretty poor.This whole picture we have of what is going on globally does not rely on Al Gore or computer models or one particular set of adjusted data. It is the result of literally millions of (wo)man hours of exhaustive investigation along multiple lines of converging evidence and those who think it stands or falls on one paper or another are sadly mistaken. You should try reading the peer-reviewed literature for a first-hand account of how they came to work all this out. It is complicated and the picture is ever gaining resolution but the key finding that CO2 is the over-riding forcing AT THIS TIME (not always, maybe not even mostly but right now) is not in doubt amongst those whose work passes peer review.
While I agree that there may not be much doubt with those whose work “passes peer review,” this statement is quite circular at best. Those whose work passes peer review are those doing the peer review. There is also plenty of peer reviewed literature that disagrees with the CO2-warming hypothesis, and not every paper that mentions warming agrees that it is the result of CO2 or that it is the primary source of the warming. The fundamental conclusions that are reached by “the climate community” actually originate from only a few dozen or so scientists, so any claim of “consensus” (which is an immaterial concept to begin with) is weak at best.
Furthermore, the key finding that CO2 is the over-riding force IS a result of computer models, quite contrary to your clearly erroneous claim. There are no other “lines of evidence” that show cause and effect (CO2 cause, temperature effect) other than computer models. All those “millions of (wo)man hours” have shown is that the planet has warmed, and CO2 has risen, nothing more, nothing less – everything else is a consequence of a warming planet, something few even in here disagree with. Such a correlation (which is numerically quite weak) does not provide any causative relationship until models are considered, models which known to be quite lacking in many areas, the largest of which is potentially the key climate driver (cloud cover).As I say, do you have problems/opinions with other areas of science or is this the only area where you can’t trust genuine research?
This is a blatant strawman argument. Any position on this area of science is irrespective of positions of other areas of science. You of the holier-than-though attitude might get a little more respect if you were capable of making an argument that didn’t contain numerous fallacies such as this. The list is long, and not all are of the informal type.Remember that you enjoy whatever standard of living you do have thanks almost entirely to this rigorous process. I somehow doubt it is broken just because it may be politically expedient to wish it so.
It is not broken because it is politically expedient to wish it so, it is broken because it has become purely political.That is what I mean by the extreme arrogance of people on here to assume they know better than someone whose life’s work they are criticizing.
It is equally arrogant of you to assume the same, i.e., that we (or anyone) do not know better. Pot.Kettle.Black.Trying to understand why climatologists have reached their conclusions and deferring to their better judgement is driven not by naivity, but by humility.
You mean, climatologists like James Hansen… driven by humility? How about Michael Mann lying to Congress in sworn testimony, failing to report adverse results. Statements that “we need to get rid of the MWP” and “why would I give my data to someone who only wants to find fault with it” or even “it’s OK to exaggerate” (all slightly paraphrased) are commonplace in the climate science arena and somehow we’re expected to defer to the “better judgment?” Also, the list of egregious manipulations and outright fabrications in climate science is long, and growing, yet you wish us to believe that these people, the ones that are actually pushing the “science” the most, are driven by humility? Puhleeze.
Mark

Steve M. (08:57:15) :
Matt, are you willing to change your opinion if the anomoly continues to drop and arctic sea ice continues to recover?
Steve, your answer here sets you up to agree with his hypothesis regardless of its own truth. In other words, you’ve basically said that “if it does warm, then it must be CO2.” There’s no reason the planet can’t continue to warm independent of the change in CO2.
Quite frankly, I would be rather happy if it continues to warm, even if CO2 is the boogey-man in the closet. There is no reason that “warmer” should be equated with “worse.” I don’t know why the environmental movement and all the climate science community has gotten it into their collective heads that warming must be bad. Why does no one consider the numerous benefits from a warmer planet (this is semi-rhetorical because I am quite certain I know why)?
Mark

Mark T (09:13:22) wrote:===
Steve M. (08:57:15) :
Matt, are you willing to change your opinion if the anomoly continues to drop and arctic sea ice continues to recover?
===
“Steve, your answer here sets you up to agree with his hypothesis regardless of its own truth. In other words, you’ve basically said that “if it does warm, then it must be CO2.” There’s no reason the planet can’t continue to warm independent of the change in CO2.”
No he hasn’t. He’s made a win/no-lose bet. If the climate continues to cool, then that severely stresses the CO2 thesis, which makes no allowance for substantial long-term natural deviation from the CO2 “forcing.” I.e., if CO2 continues a steady rise, but temperatures no longer rise in step with it, or even start to decline, as has happened in the last few years, that means the CO2 hypothesis will start to need epicycles pasted on to it to save it.
But if temperature rises, that could be due to natural causes. E.g., if the oceanic oscillations reversed (unlikely) or the sun became very active.

Hmmm… one observation. Our boy “Matt” suggested there are different “versions” of other branches of Science, and he is right. Perhaps, though, he is unaware of the often vicious and loud battles over various things, including relativity, evolution, heliocentricity, continental drift, etc. etc. ad nauseum.
Science is not determined by who has the most supporters, whose work is best financed, who is a pop-culture figure, who makes a preposterous movie that wins an oscar, or who happens to work for Nasa. In the end, Science is not even determined by the longevity of beliefs or positions.
The AGW proponents have very little supporting evidence, and the current cooling trend is practically decimating their hypothesis. There is very little, if any, correlation between their hypothesis and real world observation. Unfortunately, by politicizing the issue they have established an undeserved longevity to their hypothesis.

Roger Knights (10:37:38) :
No he hasn’t. He’s made a win/no-lose bet.
No, I’m sorry, he didn’t. His reply amounted to “I will accept that CO2 is the cause if it continues to warm if you accept it is not the cause if it continues to cool.” Look at what he was replying to, Matt asked him where it would leave his opinion if it continues to warm, i.e., given the context in which he replied, it was “warming = CO2, cooling = not CO2.” It is a fallacious position, btw, a bifurcation of possible outcomes. There are more than two, perhaps an infinite number.
I’m not criticizing Steve for disagreeing with Matt, because I agree with Steve, I’m criticizing him for not taking on the strawman offered by Matt. If your position is that CO2 is not causing the warming, then what difference does it make if it continues to warm? Spot the issue with logic, then diffuse it, i.e., “Even if it continues to warm, Matt, that does not mean CO2 is to blame, but if it were to cool, that clearly sheds doubt on CO2 as a causative agent. Where would that leave your opinion?” would have been a better response, that’s all.
In this instance, btw, the contrary evidence does tend to falsify the hypothesis, however, i.e., a cooling earth tends to disprove the concept of CO2 = warming (or at least, it weakens the case and certainly lessens its magnitude if there is a causative link). On that, Steve is correct.
Mark

Matt Bennett (05:55:04) There are scientists who make a living by making things work in the real world. There are theoretical scientists who play with theories, that have little or no connection to the physical world. Both are necessary, only one is dealing with reality. After examining climate reconstructions for the past 47 years, I can say with certainty that AGW via CO2 is an unproven hypothesis that appears to be wrong at every assertion. It was invented, just like communism, as an intellectual conjecture and both fail in the physical world.
If CO2 can cause or be part of runaway temperature on this planet it would have happened when it was 6000ppm, almost 16 times the current level. Look at the basis for the theory, the temperature and CO2 plots from ice cores. Pick any value of CO2 as the amount to cause warming, then notice the same value exists when it is cooling, how can this be? The same level of CO2 exists when warming occurs and when cooling occurs. It isn’t even logical, let alone a tenuous hypothesis. You don’t seem to grasp that many of those who write on this site are successful scientists, from all branches.
Don’t lay on the tired fantasy about not being ‘climate scientists’, nor about the importance of publishing papers. Many are too busy making things actually work in the world to be concerned about getting published. If you follow this blog you will learn many here think greenhouse gases do have an effect, but it is limited by other, apparently stronger, feedbacks. No one pretends to understand it all because it is obvious that a lot is missing from any climate modeling, thus it is easy to mock those who pretend to understand it. Perhaps Sidney Shelton’s book ‘If You Meet the Budda On the Road, Kill Him’, is an appropriate perspective of scepticism.
Here is a graph of temperature and CO2 from Vostok. Note also temperature change leads CO2 change by an average of 800 years, so it is difficult to pin temperature change on CO2.http://i40.tinypic.com/2pquhee.jpg

My point, btw, is that people in debates are often too quick to turn the tables, which actually gives the argument they’re attempting refute legitimacy. The first step should be to point out that the argument is invalid to begin with, then move forward with the alternate (in this case, opposite) argument.
This is very common in political battles. Person A accuses a person B’s candidate of something he considers wrong, then person B turns around with “well, your candidate did it, too.” By doing so, person B has immediately given credibility to the actual argument being made: what was done was wrong and Person B’s candidate IS guilty of doing it. Person A wins the debate by default, and Person B was complicit in his own loss.
Sorry to rant so much, but there are soooo many ways to defeat the alarmist positions using their own statements I hate to see them slip away.
Mark

Mark:
Steve simply ignored Matt’s challenge and responded with a challenge of his own. In no way did this counterthrust “amount to “I will accept that CO2 is the cause if it continues to warm if you accept it is not the cause if it continues to cool.”” Here’s the exchange:
Matt wrote:“Let me ask you, where exactly will it leave your opinion if, for arguments sake, over the next five to ten years we have two or three more record-breaking years and the anomoly moves to +1 degree C above average while the summer sea ice sets another record low? …”
Steve M’s. (08:57:15) response simply ignored Matt’s challenge. There is no concession of equivalency in it:“Matt, are you willing to change your opinion if the anomoly continues to drop and arctic sea ice continues to recover?”
Further, Steve M’s. second paragraph implied that he would not consider continued warming to be evidence that CO2 was responsible for it, but rather that he would attribute it to the natural variation that has produced the ice ages and the ups and downs in between them:“Other interglacial periods have peaked at a higher temperature than the current interglacial.”

Steve M
To answer your question first, yes of course I would. Evidence is what it is all about. This is what I’m getting at – I can name just EXACTLY what it would take to make me reassess things and change my mind. Which is why I asked if the same could be said for the other side. The answer is doubtful, given that the position is not arrived at by science, but by political thinking.
If we saw a continual year on year increase in summer sea ice cover over say 10 years or so, where last year’s ice stays around to a greater extent each year and gets thicker, then it would at the very least require a re-think. This is distinctly NOT happening if you know the slightest thing about statistics.
There are people on here loudly proclaiming that ‘sea ice is recovering’. To a lay reader, that may sound very reassuring. But this is a deceptive tactic. The only way in which it’s ‘recovering’ is that it is winter! Happens every year. To a greater or lesser extent, the arctic freezes over. What is of interest though is how big is the remelt in summer and is this figure on a consistent downward trend? (it is) Just look at the graph on the link I posted – there have been winter refreezes of more than twice the magnitude of this year’s, but the trend is still ever down. This is so simple I can’t believe it needs pointing out. Let’s say, for argument’s sake, the ice cover extent at maximum when our first satellite went up and began measuring was X million sq km. Now if every year in summer the extent of sea ice was getting less, this would be a sign that less robust winter ice was being formed each year, right? Even if every single winter, the extent of cover went all the way back to X million sq km (perhaps simply due to the fact that all the area of concern is still well below freezing at that time) one cannot make the claim that sea ice in summer is not on the decline. And note that because we have the same amount of cover every winter in our little example, the greater melt every summer NECESSARILY means that there is a bigger ‘recovery’ of ice cover every winter. But that’s irrelevant.
Now, the real world is much noisier than this example and the sea ice does not fully recover each winter (and is thinner where it does) but you get my point. How much freeze happens over winter has NOTHING to do with the fact that summer sea ice is in decline – which is the only thing these scientists have claimed. And they’re right.
Mark T
How is it arrogant to defer judgement to those better informed than I? I am certainly not saying you need to listen to me, or that I have access to more or better information than others on here. I am saying get out and read the literature and see what conclusions are being reached by real scientists in this field. And IT IS singularly instructive to see that deniers don’t have a problem relying on the peer-review process for other areas of science. This actually tells you a lot about their level of understanding of how it really works. If you or any others on here have robust findings that contradict the accepted causation between CO2 and global warming, by all means publish and claim your fame. Scince stands or falls on its own findings and if there is relevant information they’ve missed, you can rest assured Science or Nature would be very keen to publish it. Peer review is not some circular boys club no matter what others on here might think.
And CodeTech,
You go on believing that, just make sure you don’t take your fingers out of your ears lest you hear the crashing calving of another magestic glacier in retreat.

“Based on what I have seen, what passes for peer review in the climate community is pretty poor”
How convenient that a process that has delivered a doubling of your life span and put humans on the moon ‘falls down’ and is ‘corrupted’ just where you happen to disagree with it…
“It is not broken because it is politically expedient to wish it so, it is broken because it has become purely political.”
What year did the science of climatology (as vastly different from meteorology) stop being a process of disinterested accumulation of evidence, construction of physical models and data analysis and start being about politics? When did the memo go out to instruct the boys club that findings have to head in one direction only? What an absurd proposition, if you have any idea how things really work. Who’s the Dark Lord that controls them all? Why hasn’t he had Roy Spencer et al ‘dealt with’ in a dark alley?
“It is equally arrogant of you to assume the same, i.e., that we (or anyone) do not know better.”
It is not.
I could make with great confidence the claim that the Pope knows the inner workings of the Vatican better than you or I (unless you’re a reformed priest 😉 and it would not be arrogant at all on my part – it would just be true. Same applies here and unless you’re a climatologist and you haven’t told me (a possibility, I’ll admit) then it is quite easy to understand why one would defer to their better judgement over you or I. A completely non-controversial claim. So stop with the arrogance canard already.

Matt,
At least one scientist IS wobbling a little on what will happen after this summer’s melt
At Science Daily her.e:http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090406132602.htm
“Heading into the 2009 summer melt season, the potential continues for extensive ice retreat due to the trend toward younger, thinner ice that has accelerated in recent years,” said Maslanik, also a member of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences. “A key question will be whether this second year ice is thick enough to survive summer melt,” said Maslanik.
“If it does, this might start a trend toward recovery of the perennial sea ice pack,” Maslanik said. “If it doesn’t, then this would be further evidence of the difficulty of re-establishing the ice conditions that were typical of 20 or 30 years ago.”
So apparently the trend is not etched in stone. Some people refuse to believe that trends DO reverse. You, I know, are not one of those people.
You said, “If we saw a continual year on year increase in summer sea ice cover over say 10 years or so, where last year’s ice stays around to a greater extent each year and gets thicker, then it would at the very least require a re-think.”
If that were the case we would probably be heading for a change in trend to less ice.
Thanks,
Mike

Matt Bennett (17:29:00) :
How convenient that a process that has delivered a doubling of your life span and put humans on the moon ‘falls down’ and is ‘corrupted’ just where you happen to disagree with it…
Since when has climate science peer review put humans on the moon? False analogy. Also, the process that put the men on the moon was rigorous engineering peer review, not journal peer review. And, furthermore, why exactly do you repeat the strawman “just where you happen to disagree with it” after I’ve already pointed the problem out? Let’s be intellectually honest, please, my opinions on other review are a) not part of the discussion and b) irrelevant.What year did the science of climatology (as vastly different from meteorology) stop being a process of disinterested accumulation of evidence, construction of physical models and data analysis and start being about politics?
I don’t know, and I don’t care. All that matters is that NOW it is a political debate, not a scientific one. Another strawman.When did the memo go out to instruct the boys club that findings have to head in one direction only?
Hyperbole.What an absurd proposition, if you have any idea how things really work.
Wow, now you’re insulting my intelligence because why? Because I disagree with the way the scientific method is applied? Absurd indeed. You have no idea what my background, experience, or credentials are yet you feel justified in asking such a question?Who’s the Dark Lord that controls them all? Why hasn’t he had Roy Spencer et al ‘dealt with’ in a dark alley?
Hyperbole #2 and #3.It is not.
Yes, it is. You assume that just because someone spends their life on a project they must be right. Sorry, it ain’t so. Argument by authority.I could make with great confidence the claim that the Pope knows the inner workings of the Vatican better than you or I (unless you’re a reformed priest 😉 and it would not be arrogant at all on my part – it would just be true.
False analogy. Also, I’m not claiming this, which also makes it a strawman.Same applies here and unless you’re a climatologist and you haven’t told me (a possibility, I’ll admit) then it is quite easy to understand why one would defer to their better judgement over you or I.
Irrelevant. An ad hominem if you assume I don’t know just because I’m not a “climatologist.” Jim Hansen is a physicist. Does that make him wrong, too?A completely non-controversial claim. So stop with the arrogance canard already.
Stop being so arrogant, and I’ll stop with the canard. I can, and have on multiple occasions backed up every assertion I’ve made.
Sooo, you committed 11 fallacious arguments in one post. I cannot say that you’re wrong because of that, but it does sort of prove my point that people like you are incapable of making a legitimate argument without seriously abusing logic (albeit mostly informal). I’d had to have to see what you do with formal logic. Capable?
Mark

Matt Bennett (17:07:08) :
How is it arrogant to defer judgement to those better informed than I?
Try reading, Matt. I never said that. You said:That is what I mean by the extreme arrogance of people on here to assume they know better than someone whose life’s work they are criticizing.
It is arrogant of you to accuse others of “extreme arrogance” just because whomever people on here are criticizing assume they know better than someone whose life’s work they are criticizing. There are quite a lot of people in here, as well as other sites, that have not only done the same sort of work they criticize, but are better at it.
Mark

Mike,
Thanks for the link.
What did you mean by that last bit:
“If that were the case we would probably be heading for a change in trend to less ice.”
That doesn’t seem to gel with what you’ve quoted from me immediately prior? I would have thought it was confirmation that the trend is to MORE ice and that therefore the AGW scientists need to re-think things. Did I miss something?
Cheers
Matt

Give it up. CO2 is not the problem mans contribution of CO2 in the atmosphere is extremely small compared to what mother nature puts into it. Higher CO2 in the atmosphere is a by product of warmer temps not the other way around as far as a greenhouse gas it is one of the worst. The only reason that CO2 is so widely discussed is due to the fact that the government wants to try to control it. Carbon cap is a con. These people want to claim a naturally occurring substance is a pollutant. Every living creature puts out CO2 when it breathes. Plants require CO2 to photosynthesize. The more CO2 the more plants thrive which means more food for the populace. The majority of real scientists realize this. The ones that don’t are the ones who depend on funding from the government with the money that is stolen from the people.

You said, “If we saw a continual year on year increase in summer sea ice cover over say 10 years or so, where last year’s ice stays around to a greater extent each year and gets thicker, then it would at the very least require a re-think.”
If that were the case we would probably be heading for a change in trend to less ice. I mean that every trend eventually reverses, so ten years of increasing sea ice in the Arctic would probably indicate that the trend might soon reverse.
This isn’t the greatest analogy, but you know that children of very tall parents are usually shorter than their parents, just as children of unusually short parents are usually taller than their parents. If this were not the case the world would be populated by giants and midgets. Most things on this old Earth of ours usually return to the mean. Unfortunately, we don’t always where precisely that mean lies.
Mike

You go on believing that, just make sure you don’t take your fingers out of your ears lest you hear the crashing calving of another magestic glacier in retreat.

There are people worth discussing things with…
and there are people not worth discussing anything with.
“Majestic” glaciers advance and retreat all over the world all the time. I honestly pity the people who are, right now, crying over the cherry picked images of the few glaciers currently in retreat. Seriously. Pity.

Mark,
“Since when has climate science peer review put humans on the moon? ”
Never claimed it did. Wilful misreading, strawman. The scientific method put man on the moon and you know very well that’s what I meant. My point stands. Why do you have a problem with just one little corner of the scientific community? – It clashes with what you want to believe. Nobody is stopping you publishing contrary evidence. Put up or shut up. I’m not saying there are no arguments in science – to the contrary, its strength is in the very battles that rage over a myriad of topics. But they rage within the literature and if you wish to have credibility with your dissent, it is only therein that you will be respected. Verbal or written rants are very easy to manufacture – backing them up with evidence that impresses the most knowledgable people in that arena of discourse is another matter.
“I don’t know, and I don’t care.”
Then stop making ridiculous allergations of conspiracy. If you believe the science has become political, it should be child’s play to point out where along the process this happened and what needs to be fixed. The fact that you can’t answer this with any specifics shows how hollow and rhetorical is you point. If you say ‘NOW it’s political’, I want to know WHEN it wasn’t because then we at least know we can trust the data/theories prior to the great subjugation.
“Wow, now you’re insulting my intelligence because why”
I’m not insulting anyone, I’m sorry that you seem to take it that way – instructive, no? What I’m saying is that you don’t seem to have a very good appreciation of how the peer-review actually works in the real world (this is not a crime) and the impossibility of a mass coordinated fraud/hoax (whatever you guys like to call it) across multiple disciplines, countries, languages, journals and governments involving researchers who all want more than anything to prove each other wrong. It is, prima facie, an absurd proposition. That is all I’m pointing out.
For goodness sakes, enough with the ‘arrogance’ claim. Get a dictionary. I haven’t claimed to know more physics than you or be smarter than you, or hold keys to special truth – I have simply pointed out that if one wishes to make the various claims that you do, you will need to be able to back them up with high quality literature should you wish to be taken seriously. That’s where I look if I want to see where current thinking is at on a topic. How, pray tell, can that deferential posture be construed as arrogance?

Wow CodeTech,
You touch with reality is pretty loose.
“glaciers advance and retreat all over the world all the time”
Indeed they do, which has been known for centuries. The sustained, coordinated and dramatic retreat of almost all mountain glaciers globally in the last 50-100 years, many having completely disappeared or close to it, is something altogether different. Try looking at some old photos, there’s plenty on the web. You’d have to cherry-pick to find ones that WEREN’T in retreat.
Honestly, you just seem to spout vague words or collections of (incorrect) assumptions that (I guess) make you feel better. A good look at the hard data would make you think otherwise, which is what I’m recommending.

Matt Bennett (20:45:35) :
The sustained, coordinated and dramatic retreat of almost all mountain glaciers globally in the last 50-100 years, many having completely disappeared or close to it, is something altogether different. Try looking at some old photos, there’s plenty on the web.
Well, we only monitor less than 1% of the world’s glaciers (a thousand or so out of 270,000 or so), so this statement is false on its face. Furthermore, they started retreating at the end of the LIA several hundred years ago (really, at the end of the last ice age), not just in the last 50-100 years.
You can’t even get your “facts” straight, Matt, yet somehow we’re arrogant?
Mark

Matt Bennett (19:02:52) :Never claimed it did. Wilful misreading, strawman.
Excuse me?Matt Bennett (17:29:00) :
How convenient that a process that has delivered a doubling of your life span and put humans on the moon ‘falls down’ and is ‘corrupted’ just where you happen to disagree with it…
which you said in response to my comment:
“Based on what I have seen, what passes for peer review in the climate community is pretty poor”
Sorry, bud, but you’re wrong again. Willful misreading on your part I guess, eh?What I’m saying is that you don’t seem to have a very good appreciation of how the peer-review actually works in the real world (this is not a crime)
I’m curious what the basis of that statement is other than the one statement I made that indicated I think climate science peer review is lacking? How can you assess that I don’t understand peer review in the real world off that one statement?
Btw, you seem to think there is an equivalence between the review process that put people on the moon and the process it takes to get a paper in a journal, which is what I’ve criticized. Tell me, Matt, have you ever sat in on an engineering design review? Have you conducted your own design review? Have you authored? Have you reviewed any papers?
I can say yes on all 4 counts, I’m guessing you can’t. So, Matt, how exactly do you know my understanding of the process is lacking if you don’t even know the distinction between paper reviews and design reviews?and the impossibility of a mass coordinated fraud/hoax (whatever you guys like to call it) across multiple disciplines, countries, languages, journals and governments involving researchers who all want more than anything to prove each other wrong. It is, prima facie, an absurd proposition. That is all I’m pointing out.
There’s your strawman, again. Nobody ever claimed there is a mass coordinated fraud/hoax of any kind. Second, if you understood peer review AT ALL you would understand that it is at best, a means for catching gross errors. At worst, peer review is nothing but check kiting among friends. There doesn’t need to be any fraud when all the reviewers have already authored papers with you. Wegman got ahold of the biggest climate discovery of the 20th century and decimated it (MBH98). None of the reviewers had sufficient background to critique Mann’s flawed statistics. Steig’s recent Antarctica article has been similarly torn to pieces. It is shameful what passes for peer review.
No, Matt, it is you that does not understand peer review, design reviews, and what either entails (hint: I’ve been on both sides of both fences, a design reviewee, reviewer, an author and a reviewer).I haven’t claimed to know more physics than you or be smarter than you, or hold keys to special truth
No, you came in and accused us of extreme arrogance. If you don’t have any special knowledge, how do you know we’re arrogant instead of simply smarter than the other guys?I have simply pointed out that if one wishes to make the various claims that you do, you will need to be able to back them up with high quality literature should you wish to be taken seriously.
No, you did not, you said we have “extreme arrogance.” And, for the record, exactly what claims have I made other than your own flawed logic?
Mark

So Mark you’ve never heard of sampling and extrapolation? You think because we haven’t discovered and named every single species on earth that we can’t make an estimation of what percentage of them might be ants? or beetles?
Of your thousand or so glaciers, how many are bulking up faster than they are calving? If ‘your story is straight’ it should 50% or more given that they ‘advance and retreat’ all the time…. This is patently NOT the case. So, given that your assertion goes against the findings of most of the world’s glaciologists, you don’t think you’re being perhaps a teeny bit “over-reaching” in your conclusions?
(I’m going to avoid the “no, you’re arrogant and I’m not!” game henceforth)

Matt Bennett (21:26:33) :
So Mark you’ve never heard of sampling and extrapolation? You think because we haven’t discovered and named every single species on earth that we can’t make an estimation of what percentage of them might be ants? or beetles?
Another false analogy. You said ALMOST ALL, period.Of your thousand or so glaciers, how many are bulking up faster than they are calving? If ‘your story is straight’ it should 50% or more given that they ‘advance and retreat’ all the time….
You need to brush up on your statistics: this is only true if the sample is random, it is not.This is patently NOT the case.
Your hypothesis was almost all, so what percentage is it really?given that your assertion goes against the findings of most of the world’s glaciologists, you don’t think you’re being perhaps a teeny bit “over-reaching” in your conclusions?
What assertion is that? Most of the world’s glaciologists are smart enough to say “most of the glaciers we monitor are receding, but some are growing while others are staying the same.” You, on the other hand, well…I’m going to avoid the “no, you’re arrogant and I’m not!” game henceforth)
Good, because it is silly that you claim no special knowledge, yet somehow have the ability to divine things about my knowledge.
And, I reiterate, have you ever sat in on an engineering design review? If you have not, then you are arguing from a position of ignorance, and yes, arrogance, because you should know better not to comment on things you don’t really have experience with.
Mark

Oh, and for the record, a glacier that is calving off into the sea is growing, i.e., it is gaining mass at the top which pushes the ice out into the sea and it eventually calves off the glacier. You can look this up on Wikipedia if you like.
If you prefer to continue to argue from a position of ignorance, that is fine by me.
Mark

Mark,
No I am not a design engineer, my specialty lies elsewhere. Neither, I assume, are you a glaciologist. It does not stop us from conversing on these matters, but we should both bear in mind (this is my point continually) that we defer to the specialists on any given topic.
Given that they say…”most of the glaciers we monitor are receding”… (your quote) and given that this dovetails neatly with other aspects of AGW, you’re the one left in need of an explanation of why this is so. AGW does not predict all glaciers will immediately retreat off the tops of their mountains, or even that every single one must be waning at the same time. The balance of evidence is there though, you make up you’re own mind.

You see, Matt, this is why you’re not worth discussing anything with. You seem completely incapable of even considering that you might have the wrong information.
A simple google search involving “glaciers” and “advancing” will find a plethora of educational links. Unfortunately for you, that goes against what you believe, so you won’t. Or more likely, you’ll just determine that anything you don’t agree with is from a “skeptic” site and therefore not worthy of your time.

The sustained, coordinated and dramatic retreat of almost all mountain glaciers globally in the last 50-100 years, many having completely disappeared or close to it, is something altogether different. Try looking at some old photos, there’s plenty on the web

This demonstrates that you are not posting from a position of knowledge, but from a position of indoctrination. In actual fact, “almost all” is about as far from incorrect as you can get.
Eventually you’ll understand just how absurd your statement is. I wonder if, once the whole AGW thing is in the past like Y2K, you’ll remember the people at WUWT and wonder if maybe they knew more than you after all?
I live near glaciers. They are not retreating…

Well call back the glacial field teams, CodeTech’s got it covered with the view from his bedroom window.
….”since 1980 a significant global warming has led to glacier retreat becoming increasingly rapid and ubiquitous, so much so that some glaciers have disappeared altogether, and the existence of a great number of the remaining glaciers of the world is threatened. In locations such as the Andes of South America and Himalayas in Asia, the demise of glaciers in these regions will have potential impact on water supplies. The retreat of mountain glaciers, notably in western North America, Asia, the Alps, Indonesia and Africa, and tropical and subtropical regions of South America, has been used to provide qualitative evidence for the rise in global temperatures since the late 19th century.(IPCC2) (NSIDC) The recent substantial retreat and an acceleration of the rate of retreat since 1995 of a number of key outlet glaciers of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, may foreshadow a rise in sea level, having a potentially dramatic effect on coastal regions worldwide”…
Straight from your beloved Wiki, Mark. So, CodeTech, which papers were you referring to that support your contention that the majority of glaciers ARE NOT in retreat?

Matt,
You’re “trust of” and “deference for” climate scientists is definitely misplaced. You are the willing victim of a PR push. The quicker you wake up the better for you and yours. Unless, of course, you are a part of the disinformation.
Mike

Matt Bennett (23:02:05) :
No I am not a design engineer, my specialty lies elsewhere.
Ooh, that presents a problem, Matt. You said this:How convenient that a process that has delivered a doubling of your life span and put humans on the moon ‘falls down’ and is ‘corrupted’ just where you happen to disagree with it…
So you admittedly do not have the qualifications to make a statement regarding a process that is known as engineering design review.
Have you authored and/or reviewed any academic/journal papers?Neither, I assume, are you a glaciologist.
No, but I can read Wikipedia.It does not stop us from conversing on these matters, but we should both bear in mind (this is my point continually) that we defer to the specialists on any given topic.
I have, you have not.Given that they say…”most of the glaciers we monitor are receding”… (your quote) and given that this dovetails neatly with other aspects of AGW, you’re the one left in need of an explanation of why this is so.
a) Correlation is not equal to causation b) the glaciers began retreating after the little ice age, long before AGW was an issue. This information is readily available on every website dedicated to glaciers. Nice try.AGW does not predict all glaciers will immediately retreat off the tops of their mountains, or even that every single one must be waning at the same time. The balance of evidence is there though, you make up you’re own mind.
The alternate, and better, explanations are there if you open your mind.
So, I reiterate, more generally, have you EVER been involved with the review process?
Mark

Matt Bennett (23:57:37) :
Straight from your beloved Wiki, Mark. So, CodeTech, which papers were you referring to that support your contention that the majority of glaciers ARE NOT in retreat?
Wow, I can cherry pick comments, too. But beyond that, I never said the majority of glaciers “ARE NOT in retreat.” You have moved the goal posts, too, from “almost all” to “majority.” Are you having a crisis of conscience?
Mark

Meh – this is what happens when I post at 2am or 3am or whenever it was.
A large number of glaciers have been receding at a fairly consistent rate since the end of the LIA. There is not, however, an acceleration or mysterious increase in this rate, there’s no “hockey stick” correlation. There are a large number of glaciers advancing, and the large mass of glaciers nearest me are currently either in balance or advancing. Interesting that it is difficult to find that information on the internet.
There is no indication whatsoever that any glacial reductions are caused by humans, or our works.

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